Arrangements for communicating data in a computing system using multiple processors

Abstract

Data employed in computations amongst multiple processors in a computing system is processed so that less bits than a full representation of the data needs to be communicated yet all of the relevant information is communicated. More specifically, a sensitivity value is determined for various items of the data which reflect the number of bits in the data items that are not garbage bits, and only information in the data items that are indicated by the sensitivity value to not be garbage bits are necessarily effectively retained. At least the information that is not garbage bits and the corresponding associated sensitivity are packed together. The results of computations that are performed using the data items as at least one of the operands for the computation are associated with a sensitivity that is derived from the individual sensitivities of the operands used in the computation.