---
title: "Programmable Lookup Array (PLA)"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "term"
status: "watching"
canonical_name: "Programmable Lookup Array"
aliases: ["PLA (Sharangpani & Barton usage)"]
first_seen: "2026-08-27T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["Pentium FDIV bug","SRT division algorithm","Programmable Logic Array (false friend)"]
seek_code_commit: "7d6d9ed"
---


Watching stub. "Programmable Lookup Array" is Intel's own name, in Sharangpani & Barton's 1994 White Paper, for the hardware structure its Pentium division unit's quotient-digit lookup table (the "PD-plot") was downloaded into during manufacture — not to be confused with the far more common "Programmable Logic Array," a logic-synthesis fabric that is a genuinely different thing, one word and one failure-story apart. This vault's own mechanism note carried the wrong expansion for several weeks (see [[claim-pentium-fdiv-bug-five-missing-srt-lookup-table-entries]]) until a direct read of Intel's document corrected it. Stub created now, at the moment of correction, so a `first_seen` exists if the distinction ever needs checking against again.

## References

- [[claim-pentium-fdiv-bug-five-missing-srt-lookup-table-entries]]