This gives from 15–17 significant decimal digits precision. If a decimal string with at most 15 significant digits is converted to IEEE 754 double precision representation and then converted back to a string with the same number of significant digits, then the final string should match the original; and if an IEEE 754 double precision is converted to a decimal string with at least 17 significant digits and then converted back to double, then the final number must match the original.[1]
The format is written with the significand having an implicit integer bit of value 1 (except for special datums, see the exponent encoding below). With the 52 bits of the fraction significand appearing in the memory format, the total precision is therefore 53 bits (approximately 16 decimal digits, 53 log10(2) ≈ 15.955). The bits are laid out as follows: