Get Started with Fixed-Point Designer

Model and optimize fixed-point and floating-point algorithms

Fixed-Point Designer™ provides data types and tools for optimizing and implementing fixed-point and floating-point algorithms on embedded hardware. It includes fixed-point and floating-point data types and target-specific numeric settings. With Fixed-Point Designer you can perform target-aware simulation that is bit-true for fixed point. You can then test and debug quantization effects such as overflows and precision loss before implementing the design on hardware.

Fixed-Point Designer provides apps and tools for analyzing double-precision algorithms and converting them to reduced-precision floating point or fixed point. Optimization tools enable you to select data types that meet your numerical accuracy requirements and target hardware constraints. For efficient implementation you can replace computationally expensive design constructs with hardware-optimal patterns such as compressed lookup tables.

Production C and HDL code can be generated directly from your fixed- and floating-point optimized models.

Tutorials

MATLAB Workflow

Create Fixed-Point Data in MATLAB
Adjust fi object properties to create fixed-point data types.
Performing Fixed-Point Arithmetic
Control bit growth and overflows using the fimath object.
Generate Fixed-Point C Code
Generate fixed-point C code with MATLAB^® Coder™ and Fixed-Point Designer.
Manually Convert a Floating-Point MATLAB Algorithm to Fixed Point
Explore best practices for manual fixed-point conversion.

Simulink Workflow

Configure Blocks with Fixed-Point Output
Create fixed-point models by configuring Simulink^® blocks to output fixed-point signals.
Pass Fixed-Point Data Between Simulink Models and MATLAB
Import data from MATLAB into your Simulink models and log fixed-point simulation data to the workspace.
Cast from Doubles to Fixed Point
Simulate a continuous signal with fixed-point data types using Fixed-Point Designer to adjust scaling, rounding, and overflow handling.
Convert Floating-Point Model to Fixed Point
Use the Fixed-Point Tool to convert a floating-point model to fixed point.

About Fixed Point

Benefits of Fixed-Point Hardware

Learn about the memory, speed, and cost benefits of using hardware with fixed-point data types.
Fixed-Point Data Types

Learn how fixed-point numbers are represented as binary words.
Precision and Range

Learn how to choose rounding methods and handle overflows using Fixed-Point Designer.
Scaling

Understand how fixed point numbers are represented using binary point-only and Slope Bias scaling.
Arithmetic Operations

Choose data types and scaling for best results when performing fixed-point arithmetic.
Physical Quantities and Measurement Scales

Select measurement scales to represent physical quantities with fixed-point data types.

Featured Examples

Double to Fixed-Point Conversion

How to convert signals between built-in and fixed-point data types and illustrates how fixed-point data types affect the representable precision and range. The fixed-point data type used in this model is fixdt(1,5,2), which is a signed 5-bit number with 2 bits to the right of the binary point:

Open Script

Set Data Types Using Min/Max Instrumentation

Set fixed-point data types by instrumenting MATLAB code for min/max logging and using the tools to propose data types.

Open Live Script

Accelerate Fixed-Point Simulation

Accelerate fixed-point algorithms using the fiaccel function. Code acceleration provides optimizations for accelerating fixed-point algorithms through MEX file generation. Fixed-Point Designer™ provides a convenience function fiaccel to convert your MATLAB® code to a MEX function, which can greatly accelerate the execution speed of your fixed-point algorithms. In this example, you generate a MEX function from MATLAB code, run the generated MEX function, and compare the execution speed with MATLAB code simulation.

Open Script

Videos

What Is Fixed-Point Designer?
Design and simulate fixed-point systems using Fixed-Point Designer.