Any intention add fp16 & i16 native support in webassembly?

[lygstate]

As fp16 are broadly used in nowadays, and i16 is something corresponding to i16. So I suggest add these two type as native support in webassembly. Anyway, i8 seems not necessary, but i16 somewhat are necessary for fp16

[jfbastien]

fp16 is supported in two broad manners on some HW: some only support it as a storage type (widen loads to 32 or 64, and narrow stores, with all arithmetic in 32 or 64), whereas some architectures also support 16-bit arithmetic. To move any fp16 proposal forward, it would be useful to have a survey of relevant architectures and what they support. When considering arithmetic, it's further useful to understand if full IEEE 754 is supported.

[lygstate]

Yeap, for some target such as MCU they only have i16 support. does i16 are necessary?

[jfbastien]

I don't think i16 is necessary: we can expand any f16 conversion to i32 or i64, and do arithmetic on those types.

[AhliLi]

i|f bitscope is critical for optimization & range profiling.

[lygstate]

We can use i16 as bitwise representation of fp16.

[vshymanskyy]

My opinion on the topic: #899 (comment)

[rossberg]

Closing. Please create a proposal if you want to see this feature in future Wasm.