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[[Category:Computer Architecture]]The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard 754 defines a format for floating-point numbers used in most modern computers. ISO 60559 is an international version of the same standard (though it may lag behind the IEEE version's updates).
IEEE 754 defines a single-precision floating point format with 32 bits (24 significand bits (one of which is implied), 8 exponent bits, and one sign bit), including special values (such as infinity and not-a-number (NaN)). It then defines half-, double-, quadruple-, and octuple-precision versions, with 16, 64, 128, and 256 bits, respectively.