MorphZone

ARM for the future?

Andreas_Wolf

# 703
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

>> the 68060 is completely hard-wired while the 68040 and prior use microcode.

> I don't believe this to be true of any 68k processor, but we can check.

"MC68060 [...] is all hardwired - there is no microcode in it."
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/motorola/68k-chips-faq/

From the Freescale/NXP website:
"The Motorola 68K family consists of a wide range of members from the micro-coded MC68000 to the super-scalar, hard-wired MC68060."
https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/supporting-information/MC680X0OPTAPP.txt

From Motorola's Jim Reinhart:
"the 060 execution units are fully logic driven (i.e. no microcode)"
http://www.verycomputer.com/154_1d1b5950dff465d3_1.htm#p4

From Thomas 'thor' Richter:
"In 1982, CISC CPUs where mostly controlled by microcode, hence slow. A 68K required multiple cycles for a single instruction [...]. 68060 was hardwired again, and could run many instructions in one cycle [...]. [...] the 68K is microcoded. The 68060 is not [...]."
http://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=71284.msg812454#msg812454
http://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=71284.msg812522#msg812522

Edit: added another quote
Edit2: corrected some obsolete links

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 06.01.2020 - 14:08 ]
»29.08.15 - 11:36

Andreas_Wolf

# 704
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> There was a point in time where you could say about AMD CPU's that "well hey,
> at least it's cheap".

There was a point in time when AMD CPUs were faster than Intel CPUs. Jim is correct here.
»29.08.15 - 11:59

Jim

# 705
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28

From: Delaware, USA

Quote:

Andreas_Wolf wrote:
>> the 68060 is completely hard-wired while the 68040 and prior use microcode.

> I don't believe this to be true of any 68k processor, but we can check.

"MC68060 [...] is all hardwired - there is no microcode in it."
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/motorola/68k-chips-faq/

From the Freescale website:
"The Motorola 68K family consists of a wide range of members from the micro-coded MC68000 to the super-scalar, hard-wired MC68060."
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/reports_presentations/MC680X0OPTAPP.txt

From Motorola's Jim Reinhart:
"the 060 execution units are fully logic driven (i.e. no microcode)"
http://www.verycomputer.com/154_1d1b5950dff465d3_1.htm#p4

Thanks Andreas,
That really confirms what I've heard over the years (that there conflicting views on this).
My information came directly from Motorola engineering in the early '90s.
So, as we were using the 68000, getting ready to use the '020, and the '030 was on the horizon (but the '060 was long off), I'd be willing to say the 68K family is entirely microcoded.

BUT...here is the problem, there is no way to confirm anything.
The structure of these chips is totally "black box".
We have diagrams showing us the logical parts and we have the instruction set, programming modes, and other useful info but no real info on the actual logic.
"Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"
»29.08.15 - 12:11

Andreas_Wolf

# 706
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> My information came directly from Motorola engineering in the early '90s.

That was before the 68060, wasn't it?

> I'd be willing to say the 68K family is entirely microcoded.

I still think that's not true for the 68060.

> here is the problem, there is no way to confirm anything.

I have no reason to doubt the sources I quoted. Do you have any serious sources for the 68060 using microcode?
»29.08.15 - 13:37

Jim

# 707
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28

From: Delaware, USA

Quote:

Andreas_Wolf wrote:
> My information came directly from Motorola engineering in the early '90s.

That was before the 68060, wasn't it?

> I'd be willing to say the 68K family is entirely microcoded.

I still think that's not true for the 68060.

> here is the problem, there is no way to confirm anything.

I have no reason to doubt the sources I quoted. Do you have any serious sources for the 68060 using microcode?

No info I can rely on, but if the previous generations were, why change for the '060?
And the '060's design really derives from the '060 (really a kind of super scalar version of the '40).

And I'm trying not to even dignify takemehomegrandma's latest posts.
Apparently he has not been paying attention to your reports on the latest 64 bit ARM cpus.

And my about ten year old G5 beats some of the scores I get with one Core2 based system I have.
Some PPCs certainly beat lower end X64 systems and are light years away from what Amigas started with.
"Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"
»29.08.15 - 15:41

Andreas_Wolf

# 708
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> if the previous generations were, why change for the '060?

I don't know, but I read that after the massively microcoded 68000, the following m68k generations used less and less microcode, so that the 68040 had relatively little microcode and the 68060 none at all. Maybe it was for performance reasons?

> the '060's design really derives from the '060 (really a kind of super scalar
> version of the '40).

There are significant opcode differences between the two. And as you said, it's a black box, so ISA design of the 060 may be derived from the 040's, but this isn't necessarily true for the microarchitectural design.

> Apparently he has not been paying attention to your reports on the latest 64 bit ARM cpus.

I don't remember I said anything about performance. But there you go:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8357/exploring-the-low-end-and-micro-server-platforms/18
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/10/26/applied-micro-x-gene-64-bit-arm-vs-intel-xeon-64-bit-x86-performance-and-power-usage/
»29.08.15 - 20:07

acepeg

# 709
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 165 from 2004/11/18

Takmehomegrandma: i have never said that morphos does not support new radeon cards in the future what i say, it's that for me amd64+radeon cards is the best choice. It's not a troll.
For me AMD processors are great, i use a ATHLON64 X2 since 2008 and it's allways suffisant today. I like also intel processors but the are a little more expansive.

[ Edited by acepeg 29.08.2015 - 22:06 ]
»29.08.15 - 21:01

Jim

# 710
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28

From: Delaware, USA

Quote:

Andreas_Wolf wrote:
> if the previous generations were, why change for the '060?

I don't know, but I read that after the massively microcoded 68000, the following m68k generations used less and less microcode, so that the 68040 had relatively little microcode and the 68060 none at all. Maybe it was for performance reasons?

> the '060's design really derives from the '060 (really a kind of super scalar
> version of the '40).

There are significant opcode differences between the two. And as you said, it's a black box, so ISA design of the 060 may be derived from the 040's, but this isn't necessarily true for the microarchitectural design.

> Apparently he has not been paying attention to your reports on the latest 64 bit ARM cpus.

I don't remember I said anything about performance. But there you go:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8357/exploring-the-low-end-and-micro-server-platforms/18
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/10/26/applied-micro-x-gene-64-bit-arm-vs-intel-xeon-64-bit-x86-performance-and-power-usage/

I think you may have a point on the '60 performance.
It may also point to why Motorola eventually gave up on the series.
It would make it much more work to create new cpus.
"Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"
»29.08.15 - 22:31

Jim

# 711
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28

From: Delaware, USA

"However, when it comes to performance-per-watt, APM X-Gene 1 is clearly ahead of Intel Xeon E5-2650 and there’s no comparison against Xeon Phi systems."

OK, lower performance than X64, but...

[ Edited by Jim 29.08.2015 - 17:35 ]
"Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"
»29.08.15 - 22:34

Andreas_Wolf

# 712
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

Update:

> Kryo from Qualcomm

More details:
https://www.qualcomm.com/news/snapdragon/2015/09/02/snapdragon-820-and-kryo-cpu-heterogeneous-computing-and-role-custom
»02.09.15 - 16:02

Andreas_Wolf

# 713
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

>> the latter idea may be tackled by another contender according to rumours:
>> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/185888-vias-new-isaiah-x86arm-hybrid-cpu-outperforms-intel-in-benchmarks-but-will-it-ever-come-to-market

> Neat approach.

No release from VIA/Centaur so far, but an announcement of a MIPS core and chips with x86 and ARM compatibility from BLX/Loongson:

http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/loongson-mips64-processors-performance-barrier
http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/03/chinas-loongson-makes-a-64-bit-mips-processor-that-can-run-x86-and-arm-code/
http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/09/03/loongson-introduces-mips64-3a2000-3b2000-processors-based-on-gs464e-architecture/
http://translate.google.com/translate?&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://www.loongson.cn/news_info.php?id=326
»07.09.15 - 14:17

Andreas_Wolf

# 714
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Apple_A8 [...]
> From AnandTech:
> CPU: Enhanced Cyclone (i.e. "Cyclone gen 2") @ 1.4GHz, dual core

Introduced yesterday:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A9X

Details are sparse so far. The core has been enhanced over Typhoon (aka "Cyclone gen 2") no doubt. Naming of the new core and performance parameters will trickle through eventually.

Edit: A9 is dual-core at 1.85 GHz clock rate.
Edit2: The new core is named Twister.

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/09/21/phone-6s-customer-receives-early-benchmarks/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9662/iphone-6s-and-iphone-6s-plus-preliminary-results

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 29.09.2015 - 10:04 ]
»10.09.15 - 13:27

minator

# 715
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 370 from 2003/3/28

Quote:

Andreas_Wolf wrote:

Edit: A9 is dual-core at 1.85 GHz clock rate.
Edit2: The new core is named Twister.

Apple are claiming it's faster than something like 80% of laptops sold in the last year.
Bit of a bold claim but most laptops sold will be low end, on some benchmarks ARM have been hitting around low end laptop scores since the A15.

Talking of which, this was an interesting comment:

"2016 will be the year of the ARM laptop" - Linus Torvalds.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/linus-torvalds-say-2016-will-be-the-year-of-the-arm-laptop-494044.shtml

For servers, the APM X-Gene 1 isn't exactly the best poster child as it's built on a process 3 generations behind. The results should be much better on a more up to date process. Haven't heard much recently but X-Gene 2 was due soon with 3 fairly soon after.

However, now the big boys are getting in:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/194701-qualcomm-will-enter-arm-server-market-with-major-partners-broad-solutions
»10.10.15 - 13:49

Andreas_Wolf

# 716
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> However, now the big boys are getting in:
> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/194701-qualcomm-will-enter-arm-server-market-with-major-partners-broad-solutions

That's a 2014 article. Wrong link?
»10.10.15 - 20:05

minator

# 717
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 370 from 2003/3/28

Quote:

Andreas_Wolf wrote:
> However, now the big boys are getting in:
> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/194701-qualcomm-will-enter-arm-server-market-with-major-partners-broad-solutions

That's a 2014 article. Wrong link?

That article sums it up - Intel is finally getting competition from a semi vendor almost as big as they are.

This is the newly announced chip:

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/information-technology/qualcomm-reveales-24-core-64bit-armv8-a-server-and-a-deal-with-xilinx-2015-10/
»11.10.15 - 11:04

Andreas_Wolf

# 718
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> This is the newly announced chip:
> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/information-technology/qualcomm-reveales-24-core-64bit-armv8-a-server-and-a-deal-with-xilinx-2015-10/

Thanks. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to use the recently announced Kryo core but another new unnamed core.
»11.10.15 - 11:53

Andreas_Wolf

# 719
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> "K12" [...] designed by a core development team led by Chief CPU Architect Jim Keller.

One month ago:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9643/jim-keller-leaves-amd
»18.10.15 - 11:00

Andreas_Wolf

# 720
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

Update:

>>>> in terms of 64-bit ARMv8 (AArch64) cores, there is announced so far:
>>>> - Cortex-A53, Cortex-A57, Cortex A-72 and Cortex-A73 from ARM Ltd.
>>>> - Denver from nVidia
>>>> - Potenza from Applied Micro
>>>> - ThunderX and ThunderX2 from Cavium
>>>> - Cyclone, Typhoon, Twister, Hurricane and Zephyr from Apple

>>> - Vulcan from Broadcom
>>> - K12 from AMD

>> - Kryo from Qualcomm

> - Xiaomi from Phytium

- Mongoose / M1 from Samsung

http://www.sammobile.com/2015/04/03/samsungs-next-gen-exynos-chip-to-feature-custom-mongoose-cpu-cores/
http://www.sammobile.com/2015/04/27/samsungs-custom-cpu-cores-will-likely-be-called-exynos-m1/
http://www.sammobile.com/2015/08/17/samsungs-upcoming-soc-with-mongoose-cpu-cores-showcases-dominating-performance/
http://www.sammobile.com/2015/10/06/samsungs-mongoose-soc-benchmarks-leak-shows-incredible-performance/

(has been in the news for half a year already but I missed it somehow)

Edit: renamed X-Gene as Potenza
Edit2: added Cortex-A73 and ThunderX2
Edit3: added Hurricane and Zephyr

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 21.10.2016 - 12:05 ]
»18.10.15 - 12:09

minator

# 721
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 370 from 2003/3/28

I used to think $100 dev boards were cheap.
You can now buy a 1GHz computer for $9...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer/description
»07.11.15 - 23:15

Jim

# 722
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28

From: Delaware, USA

Quote:

minator wrote:
I used to think $100 dev boards were cheap.
You can now buy a 1GHz computer for $9...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer/description

OK, that is interesting.
Of course I need to connect it to external devices that render the $9 price less relevant.
"Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"
»08.11.15 - 15:08

Jim

# 723
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28

From: Delaware, USA

Quote:

minator wrote:

"2016 will be the year of the ARM laptop" - Linus Torvalds.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/linus-torvalds-say-2016-will-be-the-year-of-the-arm-laptop-494044.shtml

Don't bet on it.

Good thing he just focuses on a kernel based on UNIX (and doesn't really dabble in OS', other software, or hardware).

At what point did we start worshiping the opinion of a creator of a plagiarized work?

BTW - I'm not satisfied with Android or ChromeOS based ARM laptops.

Come to think of it, I regularly consider ditching my Android based cell phone for an iPhone (but the idea of joining that zombie horde troubles me).
"Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"
»08.11.15 - 15:15

Kronos

# 724
Moderator

Posts: 2323 from 2003/2/24

Quote:

Jim wrote:

At what point did we start worshiping the opinion of a creator of a plagiarized work?

One of the few points in time when I wished I was on the red side.

How I could ridicule Jim ...... how I could troll him with this statement for years to come.....

..... all the fun missed ......... *facepalm*
»08.11.15 - 16:18

ausPPC

# 725
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 543 from 2007/8/6

From: Pending...

Quote:

Jim wrote:

At what point did we start worshiping the opinion of a creator of a plagiarized work?

SCO shareholder? Even if that was a reasonable description I wouldn't care because Linux gets the job done.
PPC assembly ain't so bad... ;)
»08.11.15 - 20:47

Jim

# 726
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28

From: Delaware, USA

Quote:

Kronos wrote:
Quote:

Jim wrote:

At what point did we start worshiping the opinion of a creator of a plagiarized work?

One of the few points in time when I wished I was on the red side.

How I could ridicule Jim ...... how I could troll him with this statement for years to come.....

..... all the fun missed ......... *facepalm*

Pretty easy, consider the man's position on micro kernels (are you aware of it?), and considering the real time OS I have used them under in the past.
And as far as 'facepalmimg' goes, what kind of kernel does MorphOS use again?

I was able to load and unload drivers under earlier OS' long before I could do it under Linux based ones.
That still isn't the case in all instances under monolithic kernels.

Maybe you should discuss this with Ralph, not me.

And you are never joining the dark side.
YOU have a sense of humor and that is not allowed there.

And, again, I am against deifying Linus.
"Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"
»08.11.15 - 20:57

Elric

# 727
Cocoon

Posts: 52 from 2003/4/3

From: Bretagne Lorient

Quote:

Jim wrote:

Come to think of it, I regularly consider ditching my Android based cell phone for an iPhone (but the idea of joining that zombie horde troubles me).

Hello!

Somewhat off topic, but Jim, for about equivalent price of an iThing (iCing), there's the Neo900! It's not android nor ios... The project is in progress, pre-orders are ok! I just now haven't the money for it but as soon as, I go!
I have for now two N900's and it's a pleasure not to have always stupid permissions to let to any apps!!!!

Off topic, but ti's ARM afterall! And even the N900 with it's little Cortex A8 is quite efficient under Maemo...

MorphOSian salutations!

[ Edited by Elric 08.11.2015 - 23:20 ]
»08.11.15 - 21:11