• Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12149 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    >> Does a CPU implementing VSX automatically support VMX/AltiVec,
    >> i.e. is VSX a strict superset?

    > AFAIK, yes. [...] VSX is like an extention, or a superset as you put it.

    That would be the best thing I heard since reading first about VSX and would fully make up for the diverging focus from AltiVec/VMX.

    > I don't know if that's guaranteed to be so according to the Power ISA,
    > but at least on Power7 they implemented both.

    Err, now that sounds like a contradiction to what you just wrote before. If POWER7 implements both VSX and AltiVec/VMX (separately), then it would mean that the latter is *not* automatically there by having the former implemented, i.e. a processor with VSX but *without* AltiVec/VMX compatibility would be technically possible (and conforming to Power ISA 2.06+).

    > Though, I doubt that they would implement one without the other, to be honest.

    I fear that if Power ISA 2.06+ allows to implement VSX without AltiVec/VMX compatibility then Freescale will do just that, if they adopt VSX at all that is ;-)
  • »06.07.10 - 20:41
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