Chapter 29

fpuinfo Provider

The fpuinfo provider makes available probes that correspond to the simulation of floating-point instructions on SPARC microprocessors. While most floating-point instructions are executed in hardware, some floating-point operations trap into the operating system for simulation. The conditions under which floating-point operations require operating system simulation are specific to a microprocessor implementation. The operations that require simulation are rare. However, if an application uses one of these operations frequently, the effect on performance could be severe. The fpuinfo provider enables rapid investigation of floating-point simulation seen through either kstat(1M) and the fpu_info kernel statistic or trapstat(1M) and the fp-xcp-other trap.