RISC - Article Index

Encyclopedia - Risc: Encyclopedia Ii - Risc - Meanwhile...
While the RISC philosophy was coming into its own, new ideas about how to dramatically increase performance of the CPUs were starting to ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Central Processing Unit: Encyclopedia Ii - Central Processing Unit - Design And Implementation
Central processing unit - Integer precision. The way a CPU represents numbers is a design choice that affects the most basic ways in wh...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Central Processing Unit: Encyclopedia - Central Processing Unit
A central processing unit (CPU), or sometimes simply processor, is the component in a digital computer that interprets and executes instr...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Complex Instruction Set Computer: Encyclopedia - Complex Instruction Set Computer
A Complex Instruction Set Core (CISC) is a microprocessor instruction set architecture (ISA) in which each instruction can execute severa...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Instruction Set: Encyclopedia Ii - Instruction Set - Instruction Set Design
When designing microarchitectures, engineers use Register Transfer Language (RTL) to define the operation of each instruction of an ISA. ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - History Of General Purpose Cpus
CPU design - 1950s: early designs. Each of the computer designs of the early 1950s was a unique design; there were no upward-compatible...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Central Processing Unit: Encyclopedia Ii - Central Processing Unit - Design And Implementation
Central processing unit - Integer precision. The way a CPU represents numbers is a design choice that affects the most basic ways in wh...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - History Of General Purpose Cpus
CPU design - 1950s: early designs. Each of the computer designs of the early 1950s was a unique design; there were no upward-compatible...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Machine Code: Encyclopedia Ii - Machine Code - Example
The MIPS architecture provides a specific example for a machine code whose instructions are always 32 bits long. The general type of inst...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Instruction Set: Encyclopedia Ii - Instruction Set - Instruction Set Design
When designing microarchitectures, engineers use Register Transfer Language (RTL) to define the operation of each instruction of an ISA. ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Central Processing Unit: Encyclopedia Ii - Central Processing Unit - History
Prior to the advent of machines that resemble today's CPUs, computers such as ENIAC had to be physically rewired in order to perform diff...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Amd: Encyclopedia - Amd
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) NYSE: AMD is a manufacturer of integrated circuits based in Sunnyvale, California. It is the second-la...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Bbc Micro: Encyclopedia - Bbc Micro
The BBC Micro, affectionately known as the Beeb, was an early home computer. It was designed and built by Acorn Computers Ltd for the Bri...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Benchmark Computing: Encyclopedia - Benchmark Computing
In computing, a benchmark is the result of running a computer program, or a set of programs, in order to assess the relative performance ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Athlon: Encyclopedia - Athlon
Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of different x86 processors designed and manufactured by AMD. The original Athlon, or Athlon...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - X86: Encyclopedia - X86
x86 or 80x86 is the generic name of a microprocessor architecture first developed and manufactured by Intel. The x86 architecture current...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Arm Architecture: Encyclopedia - Arm Architecture
The ARM architecture (originally the Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit RISC processor architecture that is widely used in a number of appli...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Apple Computer: Encyclopedia - Apple Computer
Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL and LSE: ACP) is a computer technology company with its headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, Ca...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Binary Translation: Encyclopedia - Binary Translation
In computing, binary translation is the emulation of one instruction set by another through translation of code. Sequences of instruction...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Acorn Computers: Encyclopedia - Acorn Computers
Acorn Computers was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers whi...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Apple Macintosh: Encyclopedia - Apple Macintosh
The Macintosh, or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured and marketed by Apple Computer that run the Maci...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Acorn Archimedes: Encyclopedia - Acorn Archimedes
The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer based on their own 32-bit ARM RISC CPU, and spawned a ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Assembler: Encyclopedia - Assembler
An assembler is a computer program for translating assembly language — essentially, a mnemonic representation of machine language — i...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Apple Newton: Encyclopedia - Apple Newton
The Apple Newton, or simply Newton, was an early line of personal digital assistants developed, manufactured and marketed by Apple Comput...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Assembly Language: Encyclopedia - Assembly Language
Assembly language commonly called assembly or asm, is a human-readable notation for the machine language that a specific computer archite...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Computer Workstation: Encyclopedia - Computer Workstation
A computer workstation, often colloquially referred to as workstation, is a high-end general-purpose microcomputer designed to be used by...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - University Of California Berkeley: Encyclopedia - University Of California Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (also known as California, Cal, UCB, UC Berkeley, The Universi...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Dec Alpha: Encyclopedia - Dec Alpha
The DEC Alpha, also known as the Alpha AXP, is a 64-bit RISC microprocessor originally developed and fabricated by Digital Equipment Corp...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Usb Flash Drive: Encyclopedia - Usb Flash Drive
A USB flash drive is essentially NAND-type flash memory integrated with a USB 1.1 or 2.0 interface used as a small, lightweight, removabl...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Data General: Encyclopedia - Data General
Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Via C3: Encyclopedia - Via C3
The VIA C3 is an x86 central processing unit for personal computers produced by VIA Technologies. Although the predecessor to the VIA C3 ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cell Microprocessor: Encyclopedia - Cell Microprocessor
Cell is a microprocessor jointly developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM. The Cell architecture is intended to be scalable through the use of...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Computing: Encyclopedia - Computing
Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a science that deals with the original sense of computin...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Clementine Mission: Encyclopedia - Clementine Mission
Clementine was a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO, previously the Strategic Defense Initiativ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Very Long Instruction Word: Encyclopedia - Very Long Instruction Word
A Very Long Instruction Word or VLIW CPU architecture implements a form of instruction level parallelism. Similar to superscalar architec...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Branch Predictor: Encyclopedia - Branch Predictor
In computer architecture, a branch predictor is the part of a processor that determines whether a conditional branch in the instruction f...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Vax: Encyclopedia - Vax
VAX is a 32-bit computing architecture that supports an orthogonal instruction set (machine language) and virtual addressing (i.e. demand...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Instruction Set: Encyclopedia Ii - Instruction Set - List Of Isas
This list is far from comprehensive as old architectures are abandoned and new ones invented on a continual basis. There are many commerc...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Machine Code: Encyclopedia Ii - Machine Code - Machine Code Instructions
The "words" of a machine language are called instructions, each of which cause an elementary action by the CPU, such as reading from a me...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Machine Code: Encyclopedia Ii - Machine Code - Assembly Languages
Humans use mnemonic codes to refer to machine code instructions. Such a more readable rendition of the machine language is called an asse...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - Goals Of Cpu Design
The first CPUs were designed to do mathematical calculations faster and more reliably than human "computers". Each successive generation ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - Embedded Design
The majority of computer systems in use today are embedded in other machinery, such as telephones, clocks, appliances, vehicles, and infr...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Instruction Set: Encyclopedia Ii - Instruction Set - List Of Isas
This list is far from comprehensive as old architectures are abandoned and new ones invented on a continual basis. There are many commerc...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - Embedded Design
The majority of computer systems in use today are embedded in other machinery, such as telephones, clocks, appliances, vehicles, and infr...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - 64-bit: Encyclopedia - 64-bit
In computer architecture, 64-bit is an adjective used to describe integers, memory addresses or other data units that are at most 64 bits...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Central Processing Unit: Encyclopedia Ii - Central Processing Unit - History
Prior to the advent of machines that resemble today's CPUs, computers such as ENIAC had to be physically rewired in order to perform diff...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Aim Alliance: Encyclopedia - Aim Alliance
The AIM alliance was an alliance formed in 1991 between Apple Computer, IBM and Motorola to create a new computing standard based on the ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Spark: Encyclopedia - Spark
The word spark has several meanings: In electricity, "spark" usually refers to a momentary electrostatic discharge across a spark gap. I...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - Design Concepts
In general, all processors, micro or otherwise, run the same sort of task over and over: read an instruction and decode it find any asso...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Cpu Design: Encyclopedia Ii - Cpu Design - Design Concepts
In general, all processors, micro or otherwise, run the same sort of task over and over: read an instruction and decode it find any asso...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Machine Code: Encyclopedia Ii - Machine Code - Programs
A program is a sequence of instructions that are executed by a CPU. While simple processors execute instructions one after the other, sup...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Central Processing Unit: Encyclopedia Ii - Central Processing Unit - Cpu Operation
The fundamental operation of most CPUs, regardless of the physical form they take, is to execute a sequence of stored instructions called...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Personal Digital Assistant: Encyclopedia Ii - Personal Digital Assistant - Overview
The term "personal digital assistant" was coined on January 7, 1992 by John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Orthogonal Instruction Set: Encyclopedia Ii - Orthogonal Instruction Set - The Definition Of Orthogonality
All computer architectures define the set of basic (fundamental) instructions that a computer conforming to that architecture must be cap...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Ibm Power: Encyclopedia Ii - Ibm Power - History
IBM POWER - The 801 project. In 1974, IBM started a project with a design objective of creating a large telephone-switching network wit...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Powerpc: Encyclopedia Ii - Powerpc - History
The history of the PowerPC begins with IBM's 801 prototype chip of John Cocke's RISC ideas in the late '70s. 801-based cores were used in...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Pic Microcontroller: Encyclopedia Ii - Pic Microcontroller - Programming Pics
Devices called "programmers" are traditionally used to get program code into the target PIC. Most PICs that Microchip sells nowadays have...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Ibm: Encyclopedia Ii - Ibm - History
IBM - Early years. IBM's history dates back decades before the development of electronic computers – before that it developed punched...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Opteron: Encyclopedia Ii - Opteron - Technical Description
Opteron - The two key capabilities. Feature-wise, Opteron combines two important capabilities in a single processor die: native execut...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Usb Flash Drive: Encyclopedia Ii - Usb Flash Drive - Strengths And Weaknesses
Flash drives are impervious to the scratches and dust that plagued previous forms of portable storage like compact discs and floppy disks...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Convex Computer: Encyclopedia Ii - Convex Computer - History
Convex was formed in 1982 by Bob Paluck and Steve Wallach in Richardson, Texas. It was originally named Parsec. They planned on producing...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Supercomputer: Encyclopedia Ii - Supercomputer - Design
Supercomputers traditionally gained their speed over conventional computers through the use of innovative designs that allow them to perf...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Openvms: Encyclopedia Ii - Openvms - Features
OpenVMS can be divided into three layers: The kernel, made up of input/output, memory management, and process/time management subsystems...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Silicon Graphics: Encyclopedia Ii - Silicon Graphics - History
The products produced by SGI, as well as the strategies and market positions pursued by the company, have varied since SGI was founded. H...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Personal Digital Assistant: Encyclopedia Ii - Personal Digital Assistant - Functionality
Personal digital assistant - Touch screen. Practically all PDAs features a touch screen for user interaction, having only a few buttons...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Pentium: Encyclopedia Ii - Pentium - Models
The earliest Pentiums were released at the clock speeds of 66 MHz and 60 MHz. Later on 75, 90, 100, 120, 133, 150, 166, 200, and 233 MHz ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Next: Encyclopedia Ii - Next - Next Computer
Soon after NeXT, Inc. was formed, Apple brought a lawsuit against the company. In an out of court settlement between the two parties, as ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Multi-core Computing: Encyclopedia Ii - Multi-core Computing - Development Motivation
Multi-core computing - Technical pressures. While CMOS manufacturing technology continues to improve, reducing the size of single gates...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - X86: Encyclopedia Ii - X86 - Design
The x86 architecture is a CISC design with variable instruction length. Word sized memory access is allowed to unaligned memory addresses...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Data General: Encyclopedia Ii - Data General - History
Data General - Origin founding and early years: The Nova and SuperNova. Data General (DG) formed when several engineers from Digital Eq...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Dec Alpha: Encyclopedia Ii - Dec Alpha - History
Alpha was born out of an earlier RISC project named PRISM, itself the final product of several earlier projects. DEC had been marketing t...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Sun Microsystems: Encyclopedia Ii - Sun Microsystems - Software
Sun Microsystems - Operating systems. All Sun systems have been based on Unix systems which are well known for system stability and a c...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Dave Cutler: Encyclopedia Ii - Dave Cutler - Personal History
David Neil Cutler, Sr. was born in Lansing, Michigan and grew up in DeWitt, Michigan. After graduating from Olivet College in 1965, Cutle...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Subroutine: Encyclopedia Ii - Subroutine - History
The first use of subprograms was in assembly languages that did not have a call instruction. On these computers, subroutines needed to be...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Digital Equipment Corporation: Encyclopedia Ii - Digital Equipment Corporation - History
The company was founded in 1957 by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson, two engineers who had been working at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on the TX-...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Vax: Encyclopedia Ii - Vax - History
The first VAX model sold was the VAX-11/780, which became available in 1978. The architect of this model was Bill Strecker. Many differen...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Postscript: Encyclopedia Ii - Postscript - Usage In Printing
PostScript - Before PostScript. Prior to the introduction of PostScript, printers were designed to print character output given the tex...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Platform Computing: Encyclopedia Ii - Platform Computing - Java
Java programs are a typical example of the latter point. Java source code is "compiled" to an intermediate-language bytecode which is the...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Decstation: Encyclopedia Ii - Decstation - Second Decstation Line
The second line of DECstations began with the DECstation 2100 and 3100, released in 1989, which were the first commercially available RIS...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Data General Nova: Encyclopedia Ii - Data General Nova - History
Edson deCastro was the Product Manager at Digital Equipment (DEC) of their pioneering PDP-8, a 12-bit computer generally considered by m...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Playstation: Encyclopedia Ii - Playstation - History
PlayStation - Development. Nintendo asked Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on called "PlayStation" for the SNES. Because Sony wanted 25% of...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Bbc Micro: Encyclopedia Ii - Bbc Micro - Specifications
Four independent sound channels (one noise and 3 melodic) using the Texas Instruments SN76489 sound chip Built-in hardware support incl...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Game Boy Advance: Encyclopedia Ii - Game Boy Advance - Hardware
The Game Boy Advance is backwards compatible with most games previously released for the Game Boy or the Game Boy Color, as well as new s...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Sega Dreamcast: Encyclopedia Ii - Sega Dreamcast - History
When the time came to design the successor to the Sega Saturn, the new President of Sega, Shoichiro Irimajiri, took the unusual step of h...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - University Of California Berkeley: Encyclopedia Ii - University Of California Berkeley - History
In 1866 the land which is now the Berkeley campus was first purchased by the private College of California (established by Congregational...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Game Boy Advance: Encyclopedia Ii - Game Boy Advance - Hardware
The Game Boy Advance is backwards compatible with most games previously released for the Game Boy or the Game Boy Color, as well as new s...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mips Magnum: Encyclopedia Ii - Mips Magnum - Components
MIPS Magnum - Processors. As mentioned, the MIPS Magnum 3000 includes a MIPS R3000A processor running at either 25 MHz or 33 MHz. The M...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Game Boy Advance: Encyclopedia Ii - Game Boy Advance - Hardware
The Game Boy Advance is backwards compatible with most games previously released for the Game Boy or the Game Boy Color, as well as new s...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Np-complete: Encyclopedia Ii - Np-complete - Formal Definition Of Np-completeness
A decision problem C is NP-complete if it is in NP and it is NP-hard, i.e. every other problem in NP is reducible to it. "Reducible" he...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Motorola 6809: Encyclopedia Ii - Motorola 6809 - Description
Among the significant enhancements introduced in the 6809 were the employment of two 8-bit accumulators (which could be combined into a s...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Microprocessor: Encyclopedia Ii - Microprocessor - History
Microprocessor - The first microprocessors. As with many advances in technology, the microprocessor was an idea whose time had come. Th...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Mips Architecture: Encyclopedia Ii - Mips Architecture - History
In 1981, a team led by John L. Hennessy at Stanford University started work on what would become the first MIPS processor. The basic conc...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Moore's Law: Encyclopedia Ii - Moore's Law - Future Trends
As of Q4 2004, current PC processors are fabricated at the 130 nm and 90 nm levels, with 65 nm chips being announced by the end of 2...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Pluto Kuiper Express: Encyclopedia Ii - Pluto Kuiper Express - Spacecraft And Subsystems
The overall structure of the spacecraft was to be an aluminium hexagonal bus with no deployable structures. Of the total 220 kg mass of t...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - List Of Duke University People: Encyclopedia Ii - List Of Duke University People - Famous And Distinguished Alumni
List of Duke University people - Government Law Politics and Activism. David Addington (J.D. 1981), chief of staff to Vice President D...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Playstation: Encyclopedia Ii - Playstation - History
PlayStation - Development. Nintendo asked Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on called "PlayStation" for the SNES. Because Sony wanted 25% of...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Javaos: Encyclopedia Ii - Javaos - Microkernel
The system is based on a hardware architecture native microkernel. Platforms that the kernel runs on include ARM PowerPC RISC SPARC Stro...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Itanium 2: Encyclopedia Ii - Itanium 2 - Revisions
Itanium 2 - McKinley. McKinley was the first version of Itanium 2, manufactured in an 180 nm process. It was released at speeds of 900 ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Personal Digital Assistant: Encyclopedia Ii - Personal Digital Assistant - Overview
The term "personal digital assistant" was coined on January 7, 1992 by John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Kendall Square Research: Encyclopedia Ii - Kendall Square Research - Fate Of The Company
As the company scaled up quickly to enter production, they moved in the early 1990s to Waltham, Massachusetts. A few of the KSR1 models w...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Nintendo 64: Encyclopedia Ii - Nintendo 64 - Hardware
Nintendo 64 - Specifications. Processor: Custom 93.75MHz MIPS R4300i series 64-bit RISC CPU L1 cache: 24KB Bandwidth: 250MB/s Operati...   » Read the article