From: tomazi@smop.fr.mugnet.org (Georges A. Tomazi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: what is an 88k?
Keywords: M88k, motorola
Date: 2 Oct 92 03:45:28 GMT
Organization: SMOP Public Access Un*x

ruth@fwi.uva.nl (J.van Ruth (W92)) writes:

>I'm a humble M68000 user and i'd like to know something more about the M88000

The MC88100 is the first processor in the M88000 family of reduced instruction
set computer (RISC) microprocessors. Implemented with Motorola high-density
CMOS (HCMOS) tecnology, the MC88100 incorporates 32-bits registers, data paths
and adresses. The M88000 family includes the MC88200 cache/memory management
and support for shared-memory multiprocessing.

The MC88110 is the second implementation of the 88000 family of reduced
instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessors. The M88110 is a
"symmetric superscalar" machine capable of issuing and retiring two 
instructions per clock without any special alignment, ordering, or type
restrictions on the instruction stream. Instructions are issued to multiple
execution units, execute in parallel, and can complete out of order, with
the machine aotomatically keeping results in the correct program sequence.
The symmetric superscalar design allows sustained performance to approch
the peak performance capability.

The M88110 uses dual instruction issue and simple instructions with 
extremely rapid execution times to yield maximum efficiency and throughput
for 88000 systems. Instructions either execute in one clock cycle, or
effective one clock cycle execution is achieved through internal pipelining.
Ten independant execution units communicates with a general register file 
and an extended register file through multiple 80-bits internal buses. Each
of the register files has sufficient bandwidth to supply four operands and
receive two results per clock cycle. Each of the pipelined execution units,
including those that execute floating-point and date movement instructions,
can accept a new instruction and retire a previous instruction on every
clock cycle. 

In a single chip implementation, the MC88100 integrate the central 
processing unit (CPU), floating-point unit (FPU), graphics processing
unit (GPU), virtual memory adress translation, instruction cache, and 
data cache.

The CPU contains two arithmetic logic units (ALUs) that allow two integer
instructions to issue and execute in each clock cycle. The multiply and
floating-point add execution units are fully pipelined and provides the same
high performance for single-, double-, and double-extended-precision
floating-point operations.

The graphics processing unit provides dedicated hardware to allow direct
manipulation of pixel-oriented date types. This ability, combined with
exceptional floating-point performance and high data throughput, allows 
the M88110 to provide high performance three-dimensional (3D) graphics
capability, included shading, Z-buffering, and compositing.

The M88110 also includes two on-chip 8K-byte caches and two on-chip
memory management unit (MMUs) : one cache and MMU for instructions and
one cache and MMU for data. Additionally, on-chip logic maintains 
data cache coherency in multiprocessor applications.

The M88110 maintains compatibility with M88100 user application software.

The MC88200 cache/memory management unit (CMMU) is a high-performance,
HCMOS VLSI device, which combines demand-paged virtual memory management
with 16K bytes of high-speed cache memory. Memory management performance
is increased bye two address translation caches (ATCs), which provide
zero-wait-state address translation. The M88200 includes a nonmultiplexed,
pipelined processor bus (P bus) interface and a multiplexed memory 
bus (M bus) interface. The MC88200 is specifically designed for the
MC88100 reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor, and both
components feature 32-bit addressing and data with P bus interface.



-- 
+------------------+-------------------------------------+--------------------+
|  Georges Tomazi  | Internet: tomazi@smop.in.sub.org    |       Voice:       |
|  Paris / France  |           tomazi@smop.fr.frmug.org  | (33-1) 45-06-70-52 |
+------------------+-------------------------------------+--------------------+
						and God created Unix ...
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k