diff --git a/mlir/lib/IR/Attributes.cpp b/mlir/lib/IR/Attributes.cpp
--- a/mlir/lib/IR/Attributes.cpp
+++ b/mlir/lib/IR/Attributes.cpp
@@ -676,7 +676,8 @@
 static bool isValidIntOrFloat(ShapedType type, int64_t dataEltSize,
                               bool isInt) {
   // Make sure that the data element size is the same as the type element width.
-  if ((dataEltSize * CHAR_BIT) != type.getElementTypeBitWidth())
+  if (getDenseElementBitwidth(type.getElementType()) !=
+      static_cast<size_t>(dataEltSize * CHAR_BIT))
     return false;
 
   // Check that the element type is valid.
diff --git a/mlir/unittests/IR/AttributeTest.cpp b/mlir/unittests/IR/AttributeTest.cpp
--- a/mlir/unittests/IR/AttributeTest.cpp
+++ b/mlir/unittests/IR/AttributeTest.cpp
@@ -135,4 +135,14 @@
 
   testSplat(floatTy, value);
 }
+
+TEST(DenseSplatTest, BF16Splat) {
+  MLIRContext context;
+  FloatType floatTy = FloatType::getBF16(&context);
+  // Note: We currently use double to represent bfloat16.
+  double value = 10.0;
+
+  testSplat(floatTy, value);
+}
+
 } // end namespace