Quadruple-precision floating-point format special characteristics: In addition to the double-double arithmetic, it is also possible to generate triple-double or quad-double arithmetic if higher precision is required without any higher precision floating-point library. They are represented as a sum of three (or four) double-precision values respectively. They can represent operations with at least 159/161 and 212/215 bits respectively. A similar technique can be used to produce a double-quad arithmetic, which is represented as a sum of two quadruple-precision values. They can represent operations with at least 226 (or 227) bits. Quadruple precision is often implemented in software by a variety of techniques (such as
Quadruple-precision floating-point format implement nearly quadruple precision using "pairs" of double-precision values is sometimes called double-double arithmetic. Using pairs of IEEE double-precision values with 53-bit significands, double-double arithmetic can represent operations with at least a 2×53=106-bit significand (actually 107 bits except for some of the largest values, due to the limited exponent range), only slightly less precise than the 113-bit significand of IEEE binary128 quadruple precision. The range of a double-double remains essentially the same as the double-precision format because the exponent has still 11 bits, significantly lower than the 15-bit exponent of IEEE quadruple precision (a range of for double-double versus for