Problem

Consider a four-stage floating-point adder with a 2-ns delay per stage which equals the pipeline dock period.

(a) Name the appropriate functions to be performed by the four stages.

(b) Find the minimum number of periods required to add 100 floating-point numbers A1 + A2 + - + Al00 using this pipeline adder, assuming that the output Z of stage S4 can be routed back to either of the two inputs X or Y of the pipeline with delays equal to a multiple of the clock period.