In computer arithmetic, what is the correct operational sequence for floating-point multiplication?

In IEEE 754 floating-point arithmetic, two numbers $X = M_1 \times 2^{E_1}$ and $Y = M_2 \times 2^{E_2}$ are multiplied according to the mathematical identity:

The hardware execution pipeline follows this precise sequence:

1. Add Exponents: The biased exponents are summed, and the bias is subtracted once ($E_{\text{res}} = E_1 + E_2 - \text{Bias}$).

2. Multiply Mantissas: The normalized significands (including the implicit leading 1) are multiplied to produce a product of up to $2n$ bits.

3. Normalize and Round: If the product of mantissas is $\ge 2.0$, the result is shifted right by one bit, the exponent is incremented by 1, and rounding algorithms (e.g., round to nearest even) are applied.

4. Sign Calculation: Result sign is determined via $S = S_1 \oplus S_2$.

Option Analysis: