(FPA) Additional hardware to perform functions on floating-point numbers such as addition, multiplICation, logarithms, exponentials, trigonometrIC functions and various kinds of rounding and error detection. A floating-point accelerator often functions as a co-processor to the CPU. The term "floating-point accelerator" suggests a physICally larger system, often an extra circuit board, whereas a "floating-point unit" is probably a single chip or even part of a chip. (1994-12-01)