The development of a new general radix-b division algorithm, based on the Svoboda-Tung division, suitable for VLSI implementation is presented. The new algorithm overcomes the drawbacks of the Svoboda-Tung techniques that have prevented the VLSI implementation. First of all, the proposed algorithm is valid for any radix b/spl ges/2; and next, it avoids the possible compensation due to overflow on the iteration by re-writing the two most significant digits of the remainder. An analysis of the algorithm shows that a known radix-2 and two recently published radix-4 division algorithms are particular cases of this general radix-b algorithm. Finally, since the new algorithm is valid only for a reduced range of the IEEE normalised divisor, a pre-scaling technique, based on the multiplication of both the operands by a stepwise approximation to the reciprocal of the divisor is also presented,.