Power Architecture
Encyclopedia
Power Architecture is a broad term to describe similar RISC instruction set
s for microprocessors developed and manufactured by such companies as IBM
, Freescale, AMCC
, Tundra
and P.A. Semi
. The governing body is Power.org
, comprising over 40 companies and organizations.
The term "Power Architecture" should not be confused with IBM's different generations of "POWER architectures
" where the former is a broad term including all products based on POWER
, PowerPC
and Cell
architectures. Power Architecture is a family name describing processor architecture, software, toolchain
, community and end-user appliances and not a strict term describing specific products or technologies.
Power Architecture began its life at IBM in the late 1980s when the company wanted a high-performance RISC architecture for their mid-range workstations and servers. The result was the "POWER architecture
." Its first implementation was featured in the RS/6000
computers introduced in 1990. This was the 10-chip RIOS-1 processor, later called POWER1
. The RISC Single Chip
(RSC) processor was developed from RIOS-1.
In 1992, Apple
, IBM and Motorola
formed the AIM alliance
to develop a mass market version of the POWER processor. The result of this was the "PowerPC architecture
", a modified version of the POWER architecture. The first PowerPC implementation was the PowerPC 601 in 1993. It was based heavily on RSC and found its way into Apple's Power Mac computers as well as IBM RS/6000 systems.
IBM expanded their POWER architecture for their RS/6000 systems which resulted in the eight-chip POWER2
processor in 1993 and a single chip version called P2SC, "POWER2 Super Chip", in 1996.
In the early 1990s IBM sought to replace the CISC
based AS/400 minicomputers with a RISC architecture. This new architecture's development code name was "Amazon" and came to be referred to as the PowerPC-AS ("Advanced Series" or "Amazon Series") amongst engineers working on the project. PowerPC-AS was to be a multi-processor server platform based on RSC. As development continued at IBM Research labs to extend RSC to support a 64-processor inter-connect and add features specific to AS/400, RS/6000 developers joined in and added some POWER2 features. It all ended up in the 64-bit
A10 and A30 processors introduced in 1995 and the later RS64 line in 1997, used in AS/400 and RS/6000 systems.
The AIM Alliance continued to develop PowerPC from 1995 through 1997 and released the second generation PowerPC processors: The PowerPC 602 for set top boxes and game consoles; the PowerPC 603 geared towards the embedded market and portable computers; the PowerPC 604 for workstations; and PowerPC 620, a 64-bit high-performance processor for servers. The 602 and 620 never found widespread use but the 603, 604 and their successors became very popular in their respective fields. Motorola and IBM also made the "Book E" extension of PowerPC, used in embedded implementations: Motorola's PowerQUICC
processors and IBM's PowerPC 400 family.
The last effort of the AIM Alliance was the third generation PowerPC 750 in 1997. Motorola and IBM went their separate ways in developing the PowerPC architecture after that. The "G3" processors found widespread use in both computer and embedded markets and IBM kept evolving the 750 family in the years to come. Motorola, however, chose to focus on the embedded market with PowerPC SoC
designs and the PowerPC 7400, which they called the fourth generation PowerPC. This processor incorporated Altivec
, a SIMD
unit. The "PowerPC G4" came in 1999 and was used by Apple in workstations and laptops and by various companies in the telecom market.
In 1998 came POWER3
which unified the PowerPC and POWER2 architectures but was only used in IBM's RS/6000 servers.
2000 saw the last implementation of the PowerPC-AS architecture, the RS64-IV, used in AS/400 and RS/6000, now renamed eServer iSeries and eServer pSeries respectively. IBM also produced the Gekko
processor for use in Nintendo
's GameCube game console. It's based on the PowerPC 750CXe. IBM built the Rivina
, experimental 64-bit PowerPC processor, which became the first microprocessor to surpass the 1 GHz mark.
In 2001 IBM introduced the POWER4
which unified and replaced the PowerPC-AS and POWER3 architectures.
In 2002 Apple desperately needed a new high-end PowerPC part and got IBM to make the 64-bit PowerPC 970
. Apple described it as the fifth generation PowerPC or "G5". The PowerPC 970 is derived from POWER4. It lacks some server oriented features, but does have an AltiVec unit. The 970 and its descendants are used by Apple and IBM and some high-end embedded applications.
In 2003, Tundra bought the PowerPC 100 family of microcontrollers from Motorola, while Culturecom licensed PowerPC technology from IBM for their V-Dragon processor.
Motorola spun off its semiconductor division into a new company called Freescale Semiconductor
in 2004, while POWER5
from IBM was introduced, an evolution from POWER4. It bumped the PowerPC specification to v.2.01, and again to v.2.02 in 2005 with the POWER5+.
AMCC
during 2004 licensed IP
and staff from IBM concerning the PowerPC 400 family. Motorola/Freescale renamed its PowerPC families to e200
, e300
, e500
and e600
and announced the future 64-bit e700
. Power.org
was founded the same year, by IBM alongside 15 other companies, as an organization whose mission is to develop products revolving around the Power Architecture. Its purpose is to develop, enable and promote Power Architecture technology.
2005 saw the specifications of the Cell processor
, jointly developed by IBM, Sony
and Toshiba
over a four year period. Its primary use is for Sony's PlayStation 3
. Cell uses a single 64-bit Power Architecture core, and adds 8 independent SIMD
cores called SPEs. IBM also revealed the Xenon-processor
, a tri-core 64-bit processor for use in Microsoft
's Xbox 360
. With the 32-bit PowerPC based Broadway
processor that Nintendo would use for its Wii
console, IBM had put Power Architecture processors in all three of the major seventh generation
game consoles.
P.A. Semi
licensed Power Architecture technology from IBM for use in its PWRficient
processors.
Freescale joined Power.org in 2006 and IBM made the specifications of PowerPC 405 freely available to researchers and academia.
Power.org released the Power ISA version 2.03. in September 2006. All previous PowerPC specifications will be compatible with the 64-bit Power ISA. This will among other things add VMX
, virtualization and variable length encoding (VLE, 2-byte instructions added to previously 4-byte instructions) to the specification.
Power.org released the Power Architecture Platform Reference
, PAPR, in the fourth quarter of 2006. It provided the foundation for development of Power Architecture based computers using the Linux operating system.
In April 2007, Freescale and IPextreme opened up a licensing program for Freescale's PowerPC e200
core. In May 2007 IBM launched its POWER6
high-end microprocessor at speeds up to 5.0 GHz, doubling the performance of the previous POWER5. The POWER6 added AltiVec to the POWER series and an FPU supporting decimal arithmetic. The same day AMCC announced its Titan
high-end embedded processor, reaching 2 GHz while consuming very little power. It uses innovative logic design from Intrinsity
and would be available in 2008. The members of Power.org finalized the Power ISA v.2.04 specification in June 2007. Improvements are mainly focused on server applications and virtualization.
At the Power Architecture Developer Conference in September 2007, drafts to Power ISA v.2.05 and ePAPR specification were shown, and a Linux
based reference design based on PowerPC 970MP was revealed.
The Power ISA v.2.05 specification was released in December 2007.
In April 2008, IBM rebranded their Power Architecture based hardware, System p and System i. They are now called "Power Systems
". At the same time they rebranded the i5/OS operating system "IBM i". On May 25, 2008, IBM was the first to break the 1 Petaflops barrier with the Roadrunner supercomputer. In June 2008, it entered the Top500
list of the fastest computers in the world on first place, replacing the BlueGene/L which had held that position since November 2004. On June 16, 2008, Freescale announced QorIQ
families P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5, the evolution of PowerQUICC, featuring the eight-core P4080.
According to the June 2008 TOP500
list, the third and sixth fastest supercomputers in the world, and 22 of the 50 fastest supercomputers, used IBM's technologies based on Power Architecture. Of the top ten, five used Power Architecture processors as computing elements and one used them as communications processors.
In September 2008, the POWER7
-based supercomputer, Blue Waters
, got the green light. For a cost of $208 million, it will contain 200,000 processors, bringing multi-petaflops performance in 2010-2011. In December 2008, the ePAPR v.1.0 specification for embedded Power Architecture based computers was finalized.
The Power ISA v.2.06 specification was released in February 2009, and revised in July 2010.
Mentor Graphics
enables the Android mobile operating system on Freescale's QorIQ
and PowerQUICC III platforms in July 2009.
At the ISSCC 2010
conference in February 2010, IBM released the POWER7
processor and revealed the PowerPC A2
"wire-speed processor". Both massively multicore and multithreaded server oriented processors comprising over 1 billion transistors each. In June Freescale announced their first 64-bit core, the e5500
, implemented in the QorIQ P5 family processors.
Freescale announced the multithreaded 64-bit e6500 core in June 2011 under the QorIQ AMP brand. It will reintroduce AltiVec
SIMD
units into Freescale's offerings, and be integrated in multiple products manufactured in a 28 nm process beginning 2012.
At the E3 trade show
in June 2011 Nintendo
announced the Wii U game console which use a multicore Power Architecture processor of unknown characteristics, designed and manufactured by IBM
IBM licenses hard (predefined chip designs) and soft (synthesized
design that can be used in different foundries) core implementations of both the 32-bit and 64-bit Power Architecture, either directly or through Power Design Center partners such as HCL Technologies or Synopsys
. On a strategic basis, IBM also provide both microarchitecture
and architecture licenses. A microarchitecture license enables licensees to implement a new pipeline
for a core, but not to add or subtract instructions from the Power Instruction Set Architecture (ISA
). Microarchitecture licenses cover both 64-bit and 32-bit, although individual licenses are available if necessary/desired.
IBM has announced plans to make the specifications of the PowerPC 405 core freely available to the academic and research community.
In April 2007 Freescale and IPextreme opened up the PowerPC e200
cores for licensing to other manufacturers.
Companies that have developed or are developing their own processors based on the Power Architecture under license include Tundra Semiconductor
, Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
, HCL Enterprise, Culturecom, P.A. Semi
, Xilinx
, Microsoft
, Rapport, Sony
, Honeywell
, Toshiba
and Cray
.
The instruction set architecture is divided into several Categories and every component is defined as a part of a category. And each category resides within a certain Book. Processors implement a set of these categories. Different classes of processors are required to implement certain Categories, for example a server class processor includes the categories Server, Base, Floating Point, 64-bit, etc. All processors implement the Base category.
Power is a RISC load/store architecture. It has multiple sets of registers
:
Instructions have a length of 32 bits, with the exception of the VLE (variable-length encoding) subset that provides for higher code density for low-end embedded applications. Most instructions are triadic
, i.e. have two source operands and one destination. Single and double precision
IEEE-754 compliant floating point operations are supported, including additional fused multiply–add (FMA) and decimal floating-point instructions. There are provisions for SIMD
operations on integer and floating point data on up to 16 elements in a single instruction.
Support for Harvard
cache
, i.e. split data and instruction caches, as well as support for unified caches. Memory operations are strictly load/store, but allow for out-of-order execution
. Support for both big and little-endian
addressing with separate categories for moded and per-page endianess. Support for both 32-bit
and 64-bit
addressing.
Different modes of operation: User, supervisor and hypervisor.
and the Book E extension of the PowerPC
specification. The Book I included five new chapters regarding auxiliary processing units like DSPs
and the AltiVec
extension.
Compliant cores
functionality, logical partitioning
and virtual page handling.
Compliant cores
Compliant cores
The spec was revised in November 2010 to the current Power ISA v.2.06 revision B spec, enhancing virtualisation features.
Compliant cores
Instruction set
An instruction set, or instruction set architecture , is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, registers, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external I/O...
s for microprocessors developed and manufactured by such companies as IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Freescale, AMCC
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company designing network and embedded Power Architecture , and server processor ARM , optical transport and storage solutions...
, Tundra
Tundra Semiconductor
Tundra Semiconductor Corporation supplies communications, computing and storage companies with System Interconnect products, intellectual property and design services backed by customer service and technical support...
and P.A. Semi
P.A. Semi
P. A. Semi was a fabless semiconductor company founded in Santa Clara, California in 2003 by Daniel W. Dobberpuhl who was the lead designer for the DEC Alpha 21064 and StrongARM processors...
. The governing body is Power.org
Power.org
Power.org is an organization whose purpose is to develop, enable and promote Power Architecture technology. The objective is to establish open standards, guidelines, best practices and certifications regarding Power Architecture, as well as drive adoption of the platform.Power.org was founded in...
, comprising over 40 companies and organizations.
The term "Power Architecture" should not be confused with IBM's different generations of "POWER architectures
IBM POWER
POWER is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by IBM. The name is an acronym for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC....
" where the former is a broad term including all products based on POWER
IBM POWER
POWER is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by IBM. The name is an acronym for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC....
, PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
and Cell
Cell microprocessor
Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM, an alliance known as "STI". The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center in Austin, Texas over a four-year period beginning March 2001 on a...
architectures. Power Architecture is a family name describing processor architecture, software, toolchain
Toolchain
In software, a toolchain is the set of programming tools that are used to create a product...
, community and end-user appliances and not a strict term describing specific products or technologies.
Glossary
There can be misunderstanding of the meaning of the terms, POWER, PowerPC and Power Architecture. Here is a glossary with brief descriptions of each term, and links to articles with details.| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| POWER | Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC. A microprocessor architecture designed by IBM. |
| PowerPC | Power Performance Computing. A 32/64-bit instruction set for microprocessors derived from POWER, including some new elements. Designed by the AIM alliance AIM alliance The AIM alliance was an alliance formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple Inc. , IBM, and Motorola to create a new computing standard based on the PowerPC architecture. The stated goal of the alliance was to challenge the dominant Wintel computing platform with a new computer design and a... ; Apple, IBM and Motorola. |
| PowerPC-AS | PowerPC-Advanced Series. Codename "Amazon". A purely 64-bit variant of PowerPC, including some elements from the POWER2 specification. Used in IBM's RS64 family processors and newer POWER processors. |
| POWERn | Where n is a number from 1 to 7. A series of high-end microprocessors built by IBM using different combinations of POWER, PowerPC and PowerPC-AS instruction sets. Main articles: POWER1 POWER1 The POWER1 is a multi-chip CPU developed and fabricated by IBM that implemented the POWER instruction set architecture . It was originally known as the “RISC System/6000 CPU” or when an abbreviated form, the “RS/6000 CPU” before introduction of successors required the original name to be replaced... , POWER2 POWER2 The POWER2, originally named RIOS2, is a processor designed by IBM that implemented the POWER instruction set architecture. The POWER2 was the successor of the POWER1, debuting in September 1993 within IBM's RS/6000 systems. When introduced, the POWER2 was the fastest microprocessor, surpassing the... , POWER3 POWER3 The POWER3 is a microprocessor, designed and exclusively manufactured by IBM, that implemented the 64-bit version of the PowerPC instruction set architecture , including all of the optional instructions of the ISA such as the POWER2. It was introduced on 5 October 1998, debuting in the RS/6000 43P... , POWER4 POWER4 The POWER4 is a microprocessor developed by International Business Machines that implemented the 64-bit PowerPC and PowerPC AS instruction set architectures. Released in 2001, the POWER4 succeeded the POWER3 and RS64 microprocessors, and was used in RS/6000 and AS/400 computers, ending a separate... , POWER5 POWER5 The POWER5 is a microprocessor developed and fabricated by IBM. It is an improved version of the highly successful POWER4. The principal improvements are support for simultaneous multithreading and an on-die memory controller... , POWER6 POWER6 The POWER6 is a microprocessor developed by IBM that implemented the Power ISA v.2.03. When it became available in systems in 2007, it succeeded the POWER5+ as IBM's flagship Power microprocessor... and POWER7 POWER7 POWER7 is a Power Architecture microprocessor released in 2010 that succeeded the POWER6. POWER7 was developed by IBM at several sites including IBM's Rochester, MN; Austin, TX; Essex Junction, Vermont; T. J. Watson Research Center, NY; Bromont, QC and Böblingen, Germany laboratories... |
| Cell | Cell Broadband Engine Architecture (CBEA), a microprocessor architecture designed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, which has Power Architecture as a part. |
| Power Architecture | The broad term designating all that is POWER, PowerPC and Cell including software, toolchain Toolchain In software, a toolchain is the set of programming tools that are used to create a product... and end-user appliances. These are the focus of this article. |
| Power ISA | A new instruction set, combining late versions of POWER and PowerPC instruction sets. Designed by IBM and Freescale. |
History
IBM POWER
POWER is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by IBM. The name is an acronym for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC....
." Its first implementation was featured in the RS/6000
RS/6000
RISC System/6000, or RS/6000 for short, is a family of RISC and UNIX based servers, workstations and supercomputers made by IBM in the 1990s. The RS/6000 family replaced the IBM RT computer platform in February 1990 and was the first computer line to see the use of IBM's POWER and PowerPC based...
computers introduced in 1990. This was the 10-chip RIOS-1 processor, later called POWER1
POWER1
The POWER1 is a multi-chip CPU developed and fabricated by IBM that implemented the POWER instruction set architecture . It was originally known as the “RISC System/6000 CPU” or when an abbreviated form, the “RS/6000 CPU” before introduction of successors required the original name to be replaced...
. The RISC Single Chip
RISC Single Chip
The RISC Single Chip, or RSC, is a single-chip microprocessor developed and fabricated by International Business Machines . The RSC was a feature-reduced single-chip implementation of the POWER1, a multi-chip central processing unit which implemented the POWER instruction set architecture...
(RSC) processor was developed from RIOS-1.
In 1992, Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
, IBM and Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
formed the AIM alliance
AIM alliance
The AIM alliance was an alliance formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple Inc. , IBM, and Motorola to create a new computing standard based on the PowerPC architecture. The stated goal of the alliance was to challenge the dominant Wintel computing platform with a new computer design and a...
to develop a mass market version of the POWER processor. The result of this was the "PowerPC architecture
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
", a modified version of the POWER architecture. The first PowerPC implementation was the PowerPC 601 in 1993. It was based heavily on RSC and found its way into Apple's Power Mac computers as well as IBM RS/6000 systems.
IBM expanded their POWER architecture for their RS/6000 systems which resulted in the eight-chip POWER2
POWER2
The POWER2, originally named RIOS2, is a processor designed by IBM that implemented the POWER instruction set architecture. The POWER2 was the successor of the POWER1, debuting in September 1993 within IBM's RS/6000 systems. When introduced, the POWER2 was the fastest microprocessor, surpassing the...
processor in 1993 and a single chip version called P2SC, "POWER2 Super Chip", in 1996.
In the early 1990s IBM sought to replace the CISC
Complex instruction set computer
A complex instruction set computer , is a computer where single instructions can execute several low-level operations and/or are capable of multi-step operations or addressing modes within single instructions...
based AS/400 minicomputers with a RISC architecture. This new architecture's development code name was "Amazon" and came to be referred to as the PowerPC-AS ("Advanced Series" or "Amazon Series") amongst engineers working on the project. PowerPC-AS was to be a multi-processor server platform based on RSC. As development continued at IBM Research labs to extend RSC to support a 64-processor inter-connect and add features specific to AS/400, RS/6000 developers joined in and added some POWER2 features. It all ended up in the 64-bit
64-bit
64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
A10 and A30 processors introduced in 1995 and the later RS64 line in 1997, used in AS/400 and RS/6000 systems.
The AIM Alliance continued to develop PowerPC from 1995 through 1997 and released the second generation PowerPC processors: The PowerPC 602 for set top boxes and game consoles; the PowerPC 603 geared towards the embedded market and portable computers; the PowerPC 604 for workstations; and PowerPC 620, a 64-bit high-performance processor for servers. The 602 and 620 never found widespread use but the 603, 604 and their successors became very popular in their respective fields. Motorola and IBM also made the "Book E" extension of PowerPC, used in embedded implementations: Motorola's PowerQUICC
PowerQUICC
PowerQUICC is the name for several Power Architecture based microcontrollers from Freescale Semiconductor. They are built around one or more PowerPC cores and the QUICC Engine which is a separate RISC core specialized in such tasks such as I/O, communications, ATM, security acceleration, networking...
processors and IBM's PowerPC 400 family.
The last effort of the AIM Alliance was the third generation PowerPC 750 in 1997. Motorola and IBM went their separate ways in developing the PowerPC architecture after that. The "G3" processors found widespread use in both computer and embedded markets and IBM kept evolving the 750 family in the years to come. Motorola, however, chose to focus on the embedded market with PowerPC SoC
System-on-a-chip
A system on a chip or system on chip is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate...
designs and the PowerPC 7400, which they called the fourth generation PowerPC. This processor incorporated Altivec
AltiVec
AltiVec is a floating point and integer SIMD instruction set designed and owned by Apple, IBM and Freescale Semiconductor, formerly the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola, , and implemented on versions of the PowerPC including Motorola's G4, IBM's G5 and POWER6 processors, and P.A. Semi's...
, a SIMD
SIMD
Single instruction, multiple data , is a class of parallel computers in Flynn's taxonomy. It describes computers with multiple processing elements that perform the same operation on multiple data simultaneously...
unit. The "PowerPC G4" came in 1999 and was used by Apple in workstations and laptops and by various companies in the telecom market.
In 1998 came POWER3
POWER3
The POWER3 is a microprocessor, designed and exclusively manufactured by IBM, that implemented the 64-bit version of the PowerPC instruction set architecture , including all of the optional instructions of the ISA such as the POWER2. It was introduced on 5 October 1998, debuting in the RS/6000 43P...
which unified the PowerPC and POWER2 architectures but was only used in IBM's RS/6000 servers.
2000 saw the last implementation of the PowerPC-AS architecture, the RS64-IV, used in AS/400 and RS/6000, now renamed eServer iSeries and eServer pSeries respectively. IBM also produced the Gekko
Gekko (microprocessor)
Gekko is a 32-bit PowerPC microprocessor custom made by IBM in 2000 for Nintendo to use as the CPU in their sixth generation game console, the Nintendo GameCube.-Development:...
processor for use in Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
's GameCube game console. It's based on the PowerPC 750CXe. IBM built the Rivina
IBM Rivina
Rivina is an experimental 64-bit PowerPC microprocessor built by IBM in 2000. It was the successor to "guTS" and the purpose of both was to build a processor able to reach very high frequencies. They were the first microprocessors to reach and surpass the 1 GHz mark.Project work was conducted by...
, experimental 64-bit PowerPC processor, which became the first microprocessor to surpass the 1 GHz mark.
In 2001 IBM introduced the POWER4
POWER4
The POWER4 is a microprocessor developed by International Business Machines that implemented the 64-bit PowerPC and PowerPC AS instruction set architectures. Released in 2001, the POWER4 succeeded the POWER3 and RS64 microprocessors, and was used in RS/6000 and AS/400 computers, ending a separate...
which unified and replaced the PowerPC-AS and POWER3 architectures.
In 2002 Apple desperately needed a new high-end PowerPC part and got IBM to make the 64-bit PowerPC 970
PowerPC 970
The PowerPC 970, PowerPC 970FX, PowerPC 970GX, and PowerPC 970MP, are 64-bit Power Architecture processors from IBM introduced in 2002. When used in Apple Inc. machines, they were dubbed the PowerPC G5....
. Apple described it as the fifth generation PowerPC or "G5". The PowerPC 970 is derived from POWER4. It lacks some server oriented features, but does have an AltiVec unit. The 970 and its descendants are used by Apple and IBM and some high-end embedded applications.
In 2003, Tundra bought the PowerPC 100 family of microcontrollers from Motorola, while Culturecom licensed PowerPC technology from IBM for their V-Dragon processor.
Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is a producer and designer of embedded hardware, with 17 billion semiconductor chips in use around the world. The company focuses on the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets with its product portfolio including microprocessors, microcontrollers,...
in 2004, while POWER5
POWER5
The POWER5 is a microprocessor developed and fabricated by IBM. It is an improved version of the highly successful POWER4. The principal improvements are support for simultaneous multithreading and an on-die memory controller...
from IBM was introduced, an evolution from POWER4. It bumped the PowerPC specification to v.2.01, and again to v.2.02 in 2005 with the POWER5+.
AMCC
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company designing network and embedded Power Architecture , and server processor ARM , optical transport and storage solutions...
during 2004 licensed IP
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
and staff from IBM concerning the PowerPC 400 family. Motorola/Freescale renamed its PowerPC families to e200
PowerPC e200
The PowerPC e200 is a family of 32-bit Power Architecture microprocessor cores developed by Freescale for primary use in automotive and industrial control systems...
, e300
PowerPC e300
The PowerPC e300 is a family of 32-bit Power Architecture microprocessor cores developed by Freescale for primary use in system-on-a-chip designs with speed ranging up to 800 MHz, thus making them ideal for embedded applications....
, e500
PowerPC e500
The PowerPC e500 is a 32-bit Power Architecture-based microprocessor core from Freescale Semiconductor. The core is compatible with the older PowerPC Book E specification as well as the Power ISA v.2.03. It has a dual issue, seven-stage pipeline with FPUs , 32/32 KiB data and instruction L1 caches...
and e600
PowerPC e600
The PowerPC e600 is a family of 32-bit Power Architecture microprocessor cores developed by Freescale for primary use in high performance system-on-a-chip designs with speed ranging over 2 GHz, thus making them ideal for high performance routing and telecommunications applications...
and announced the future 64-bit e700
PowerPC e700
The PowerPC e700 or NG-64 was the codenames of the long anticipated first 64-bit embedded RISC-processor cores built using Power Architecture technology designed by Freescale. It was eventually revealed as the e5500 core....
. Power.org
Power.org
Power.org is an organization whose purpose is to develop, enable and promote Power Architecture technology. The objective is to establish open standards, guidelines, best practices and certifications regarding Power Architecture, as well as drive adoption of the platform.Power.org was founded in...
was founded the same year, by IBM alongside 15 other companies, as an organization whose mission is to develop products revolving around the Power Architecture. Its purpose is to develop, enable and promote Power Architecture technology.
2005 saw the specifications of the Cell processor
Cell microprocessor
Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM, an alliance known as "STI". The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center in Austin, Texas over a four-year period beginning March 2001 on a...
, jointly developed by IBM, Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
and Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
over a four year period. Its primary use is for Sony's PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
. Cell uses a single 64-bit Power Architecture core, and adds 8 independent SIMD
SIMD
Single instruction, multiple data , is a class of parallel computers in Flynn's taxonomy. It describes computers with multiple processing elements that perform the same operation on multiple data simultaneously...
cores called SPEs. IBM also revealed the Xenon-processor
Xenon (processor)
Xenon is a CPU that is used in the Xbox 360 game console. The processor, internally codenamed "Waternoose", which was named after Henry J. Waternoose III in Monsters Inc. by IBM and XCPU by Microsoft, is based on IBM's PowerPC instruction set architecture, consisting of three independent processor...
, a tri-core 64-bit processor for use in Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
. With the 32-bit PowerPC based Broadway
Broadway (microprocessor)
Broadway is the codename of the 32-bit Central Processing Unit used in Nintendo's Wii video game console. It was designed by IBM, and is currently being produced using a 90 nm SOI process....
processor that Nintendo would use for its Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
console, IBM had put Power Architecture processors in all three of the major seventh generation
History of video game consoles (seventh generation)
In the history of video games, the seventh generation of consoles is the current generation , and includes consoles released since late by Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony...
game consoles.
P.A. Semi
P.A. Semi
P. A. Semi was a fabless semiconductor company founded in Santa Clara, California in 2003 by Daniel W. Dobberpuhl who was the lead designer for the DEC Alpha 21064 and StrongARM processors...
licensed Power Architecture technology from IBM for use in its PWRficient
PWRficient
PWRficient is the name of a series of microprocessors designed by P.A. Semi.PWRficient processors comply with the 64-bit Power Architecture, and are designed for high performance and extreme power efficiency...
processors.
Freescale joined Power.org in 2006 and IBM made the specifications of PowerPC 405 freely available to researchers and academia.
Power.org released the Power ISA version 2.03. in September 2006. All previous PowerPC specifications will be compatible with the 64-bit Power ISA. This will among other things add VMX
VMX
VMX may refer to:* Vintage Motocross* Vintela Management Extensions, which extend Microsoft Systems Management Server to Unix-like systems...
, virtualization and variable length encoding (VLE, 2-byte instructions added to previously 4-byte instructions) to the specification.
Power.org released the Power Architecture Platform Reference
Power Architecture Platform Reference
Power Architecture Platform Reference is an initiative from Power.org to make a new open computing platform based on Power Architecture technology. It follows two previous attempts made in the 1990s, PReP and CHRP....
, PAPR, in the fourth quarter of 2006. It provided the foundation for development of Power Architecture based computers using the Linux operating system.
In April 2007, Freescale and IPextreme opened up a licensing program for Freescale's PowerPC e200
PowerPC e200
The PowerPC e200 is a family of 32-bit Power Architecture microprocessor cores developed by Freescale for primary use in automotive and industrial control systems...
core. In May 2007 IBM launched its POWER6
POWER6
The POWER6 is a microprocessor developed by IBM that implemented the Power ISA v.2.03. When it became available in systems in 2007, it succeeded the POWER5+ as IBM's flagship Power microprocessor...
high-end microprocessor at speeds up to 5.0 GHz, doubling the performance of the previous POWER5. The POWER6 added AltiVec to the POWER series and an FPU supporting decimal arithmetic. The same day AMCC announced its Titan
Titan (microprocessor)
Titan was supposed to be a family of 32-bit Power Architecture-based microprocessor cores designed by Applied Micro Circuits Corporation , but was scrapped in 2010 according to reports...
high-end embedded processor, reaching 2 GHz while consuming very little power. It uses innovative logic design from Intrinsity
Intrinsity
Intrinsity was a privately held Austin, Texas based fabless semiconductor company; it was founded in 1997 as EVSX on the remnants of Exponential Technology and changed its name to Intrinsity in 2000...
and would be available in 2008. The members of Power.org finalized the Power ISA v.2.04 specification in June 2007. Improvements are mainly focused on server applications and virtualization.
At the Power Architecture Developer Conference in September 2007, drafts to Power ISA v.2.05 and ePAPR specification were shown, and a Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
based reference design based on PowerPC 970MP was revealed.
The Power ISA v.2.05 specification was released in December 2007.
In April 2008, IBM rebranded their Power Architecture based hardware, System p and System i. They are now called "Power Systems
IBM Power Systems
Power Systems is the name of IBM's Power Architecture-based server line.Before the Power Systems line was announced on April 2, 2008, IBM had two distinct Power-based lines: the System i running IBM i - and the System p series running AIX or Linux.- History :IBM had two discrete Power Architecture...
". At the same time they rebranded the i5/OS operating system "IBM i". On May 25, 2008, IBM was the first to break the 1 Petaflops barrier with the Roadrunner supercomputer. In June 2008, it entered the Top500
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year...
list of the fastest computers in the world on first place, replacing the BlueGene/L which had held that position since November 2004. On June 16, 2008, Freescale announced QorIQ
QorIQ
QorIQ is a brand of Power Architecture-based communications microprocessors from Freescale. It is the evolutionary step from the PowerQUICC platform and will be built around one or more Power Architecture e500mc cores and come in five different product platforms, P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5, segmented...
families P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5, the evolution of PowerQUICC, featuring the eight-core P4080.
According to the June 2008 TOP500
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year...
list, the third and sixth fastest supercomputers in the world, and 22 of the 50 fastest supercomputers, used IBM's technologies based on Power Architecture. Of the top ten, five used Power Architecture processors as computing elements and one used them as communications processors.
In September 2008, the POWER7
POWER7
POWER7 is a Power Architecture microprocessor released in 2010 that succeeded the POWER6. POWER7 was developed by IBM at several sites including IBM's Rochester, MN; Austin, TX; Essex Junction, Vermont; T. J. Watson Research Center, NY; Bromont, QC and Böblingen, Germany laboratories...
-based supercomputer, Blue Waters
Blue Waters
Blue Waters is the name of a petascale supercomputer to be deployed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...
, got the green light. For a cost of $208 million, it will contain 200,000 processors, bringing multi-petaflops performance in 2010-2011. In December 2008, the ePAPR v.1.0 specification for embedded Power Architecture based computers was finalized.
The Power ISA v.2.06 specification was released in February 2009, and revised in July 2010.
Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics, Inc is a US-based multinational corporation dealing in electronic design automation for electrical engineering and electronics, as of 2004, ranked third in the EDA industry it helped create...
enables the Android mobile operating system on Freescale's QorIQ
QorIQ
QorIQ is a brand of Power Architecture-based communications microprocessors from Freescale. It is the evolutionary step from the PowerQUICC platform and will be built around one or more Power Architecture e500mc cores and come in five different product platforms, P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5, segmented...
and PowerQUICC III platforms in July 2009.
At the ISSCC 2010
International Solid-State Circuits Conference
International Solid-State Circuits Conference is a global forum for presentation of advances in solid-state circuits and Systems-on-a-Chip. The Conference offers a unique opportunity for engineers working at the cutting edge of IC design to maintain technical currency, and to network with leading...
conference in February 2010, IBM released the POWER7
POWER7
POWER7 is a Power Architecture microprocessor released in 2010 that succeeded the POWER6. POWER7 was developed by IBM at several sites including IBM's Rochester, MN; Austin, TX; Essex Junction, Vermont; T. J. Watson Research Center, NY; Bromont, QC and Böblingen, Germany laboratories...
processor and revealed the PowerPC A2
PowerPC A2
The PowerPC A2 is a massively multicore capable and multithreaded 64-bit Power Architecture processor core designed by IBM using the Power ISA v.2.06 specification. Versions of processors based on the A2 core range from a 2.3 GHz version with 16 cores consuming 65 W to a less powerful, four core...
"wire-speed processor". Both massively multicore and multithreaded server oriented processors comprising over 1 billion transistors each. In June Freescale announced their first 64-bit core, the e5500
PowerPC e5500
The PowerPC e5500 is a 64-bit Power Architecture-based microprocessor core from Freescale Semiconductor. The core is compatible with the Power ISA v.2.06 with hypervisor support. It has a four issue, seven-stage out-of-order pipeline with a double precision FPU, three Integer units, 32/32 KB data...
, implemented in the QorIQ P5 family processors.
Freescale announced the multithreaded 64-bit e6500 core in June 2011 under the QorIQ AMP brand. It will reintroduce AltiVec
AltiVec
AltiVec is a floating point and integer SIMD instruction set designed and owned by Apple, IBM and Freescale Semiconductor, formerly the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola, , and implemented on versions of the PowerPC including Motorola's G4, IBM's G5 and POWER6 processors, and P.A. Semi's...
SIMD
SIMD
Single instruction, multiple data , is a class of parallel computers in Flynn's taxonomy. It describes computers with multiple processing elements that perform the same operation on multiple data simultaneously...
units into Freescale's offerings, and be integrated in multiple products manufactured in a 28 nm process beginning 2012.
At the E3 trade show
Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011, commonly known as E3 2011, was the 15th Electronic Entertainment Expo held. E3 is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association . The event took place June 7–9, 2011 at the Los Angeles...
in June 2011 Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
announced the Wii U game console which use a multicore Power Architecture processor of unknown characteristics, designed and manufactured by IBM
Licensing
The Power Architecture is open for licensing by third parties. Licensees can choose to license anything from a single predefined core, to a complete new family of Power Architecture products.IBM licenses hard (predefined chip designs) and soft (synthesized
Logic synthesis
In electronics, logic synthesis is a process by which an abstract form of desired circuit behavior, typically register transfer level , is turned into a design implementation in terms of logic gates. Common examples of this process include synthesis of HDLs, including VHDL and Verilog...
design that can be used in different foundries) core implementations of both the 32-bit and 64-bit Power Architecture, either directly or through Power Design Center partners such as HCL Technologies or Synopsys
Synopsys
Synopsys, Inc. is one of the largest companies in the Electronic Design Automation industry. Synopsys' first and best-known product is Design Compiler, a logic-synthesis tool. Synopsys offers a wide range of other products used in the design of an application-specific integrated circuit...
. On a strategic basis, IBM also provide both microarchitecture
Microarchitecture
In computer engineering, microarchitecture , also called computer organization, is the way a given instruction set architecture is implemented on a processor. A given ISA may be implemented with different microarchitectures. Implementations might vary due to different goals of a given design or...
and architecture licenses. A microarchitecture license enables licensees to implement a new pipeline
Instruction pipeline
An instruction pipeline is a technique used in the design of computers and other digital electronic devices to increase their instruction throughput ....
for a core, but not to add or subtract instructions from the Power Instruction Set Architecture (ISA
Instruction set
An instruction set, or instruction set architecture , is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, registers, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external I/O...
). Microarchitecture licenses cover both 64-bit and 32-bit, although individual licenses are available if necessary/desired.
IBM has announced plans to make the specifications of the PowerPC 405 core freely available to the academic and research community.
In April 2007 Freescale and IPextreme opened up the PowerPC e200
PowerPC e200
The PowerPC e200 is a family of 32-bit Power Architecture microprocessor cores developed by Freescale for primary use in automotive and industrial control systems...
cores for licensing to other manufacturers.
Companies that have developed or are developing their own processors based on the Power Architecture under license include Tundra Semiconductor
Tundra Semiconductor
Tundra Semiconductor Corporation supplies communications, computing and storage companies with System Interconnect products, intellectual property and design services backed by customer service and technical support...
, Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
Applied Micro Circuits Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company designing network and embedded Power Architecture , and server processor ARM , optical transport and storage solutions...
, HCL Enterprise, Culturecom, P.A. Semi
P.A. Semi
P. A. Semi was a fabless semiconductor company founded in Santa Clara, California in 2003 by Daniel W. Dobberpuhl who was the lead designer for the DEC Alpha 21064 and StrongARM processors...
, Xilinx
Xilinx
Xilinx, Inc. is a supplier of programmable logic devices. It is known for inventing the field programmable gate array and as the first semiconductor company with a fabless manufacturing model....
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Rapport, Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, Honeywell
Honeywell
Honeywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
, Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
and Cray
Cray
Cray Inc. is an American supercomputer manufacturer based in Seattle, Washington. The company's predecessor, Cray Research, Inc. , was founded in 1972 by computer designer Seymour Cray. Seymour Cray went on to form the spin-off Cray Computer Corporation , in 1989, which went bankrupt in 1995,...
.
Description
Power is a RISC load/store architecture. It has multiple sets of registers
Processor register
In computer architecture, a processor register is a small amount of storage available as part of a CPU or other digital processor. Such registers are addressed by mechanisms other than main memory and can be accessed more quickly...
:
- thirty-two 32-bit or 64-bit General Purpose Registers (GPRs) for integer operationsArithmetic logic unitIn computing, an arithmetic logic unit is a digital circuit that performs arithmetic and logical operations.The ALU is a fundamental building block of the central processing unit of a computer, and even the simplest microprocessors contain one for purposes such as maintaining timers...
. - sixty-four 128-bit Vector Scalar registers (VSRs) for vector operationsVector processorA vector processor, or array processor, is a central processing unit that implements an instruction set containing instructions that operate on one-dimensional arrays of data called vectors. This is in contrast to a scalar processor, whose instructions operate on single data items...
and floating point operationsFloating point unitA floating-point unit is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root...
.- thirty-two 64-bit Floating Point Registers (FPRs) as part of the VSRs for floating point operations.
- thirty-two 128-bit Vector registers (VRs) as part of the VSRs for vector operations.
- Eight 4-bit Condition register fields (CRs) for comparison and flow controlControl flowIn computer science, control flow refers to the order in which the individual statements, instructions, or function calls of an imperative or a declarative program are executed or evaluated....
. - Special registers: Counter Register (CTR), Link Register (LR), Time Base (TBU, TBL), Alternate Time Base (ATBU, ATBL), Accumulator (ACC), Status registers (XER, FPSCR, VSCR, SPEFSCR).
Instructions have a length of 32 bits, with the exception of the VLE (variable-length encoding) subset that provides for higher code density for low-end embedded applications. Most instructions are triadic
Triadic relation
In mathematics, a ternary relation or triadic relation is a finitary relation in which the number of places in the relation is three. Ternary relations may also be referred to as 3-adic, 3-ary, 3-dimensional, or 3-place....
, i.e. have two source operands and one destination. Single and double precision
Double precision
In computing, double precision is a computer number format that occupies two adjacent storage locations in computer memory. A double-precision number, sometimes simply called a double, may be defined to be an integer, fixed point, or floating point .Modern computers with 32-bit storage locations...
IEEE-754 compliant floating point operations are supported, including additional fused multiply–add (FMA) and decimal floating-point instructions. There are provisions for SIMD
SIMD
Single instruction, multiple data , is a class of parallel computers in Flynn's taxonomy. It describes computers with multiple processing elements that perform the same operation on multiple data simultaneously...
operations on integer and floating point data on up to 16 elements in a single instruction.
Support for Harvard
Harvard architecture
The Harvard architecture is a computer architecture with physically separate storage and signal pathways for instructions and data. The term originated from the Harvard Mark I relay-based computer, which stored instructions on punched tape and data in electro-mechanical counters...
cache
CPU cache
A CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations...
, i.e. split data and instruction caches, as well as support for unified caches. Memory operations are strictly load/store, but allow for out-of-order execution
Out-of-order execution
In computer engineering, out-of-order execution is a paradigm used in most high-performance microprocessors to make use of instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted by a certain type of costly delay...
. Support for both big and little-endian
Endianness
In computing, the term endian or endianness refers to the ordering of individually addressable sub-components within the representation of a larger data item as stored in external memory . Each sub-component in the representation has a unique degree of significance, like the place value of digits...
addressing with separate categories for moded and per-page endianess. Support for both 32-bit
32-bit
The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....
and 64-bit
64-bit
64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
addressing.
Different modes of operation: User, supervisor and hypervisor.
Categories
- Base – Most of Book I and Book II
- Server – Book III-S
- Embedded – Book III-E
- Misc – Floating Point, Vector, Signal Processing, Cache Locking, Decimal Floating-point, etc.
Books
The Power Architecture specification is divided into five parts, called "books":- Book I – User Instruction Set Architecture covers the base instruction set available to the application programmer. Memory reference, flow control, Integer, floating point, numeric acceleration, application-level programming. It includes chapters regarding auxiliary processing units like DSPsDigital signal processorA digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
and the AltiVecAltiVecAltiVec is a floating point and integer SIMD instruction set designed and owned by Apple, IBM and Freescale Semiconductor, formerly the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola, , and implemented on versions of the PowerPC including Motorola's G4, IBM's G5 and POWER6 processors, and P.A. Semi's...
extension. - Book II – Virtual Environment Architecture defines the storage model available to the application programmer, including timing, synchronization, cache management, storage features, byte ordering.
- Book III – Operating Environment Architecture includes exceptions, interrupts, memory management, debug facilities and special control functions. It's divided into two parts.
- Book III-S – Defines the supervisor instructions used for general purpose/server implementations. It's mainly the contents of the Book III of the former PowerPC ISA.
- Book III-E – Defines the supervisor instructions used for embedded applications. It is derived from the former PowerPC Book E.
- Book VLE – Variable Length Encoded Instruction Architecture defines alternative instructions and definitions from Book I-III, intended for higher instruction density and very-low-end applications. They use 16-bit instructions and big endian byte ordering.
Power ISA v.2.03
The specification for Power ISA v.2.03 is based on the former PowerPC ISA v.2.02 in POWER5+POWER5
The POWER5 is a microprocessor developed and fabricated by IBM. It is an improved version of the highly successful POWER4. The principal improvements are support for simultaneous multithreading and an on-die memory controller...
and the Book E extension of the PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
specification. The Book I included five new chapters regarding auxiliary processing units like DSPs
Digital signal processor
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
and the AltiVec
AltiVec
AltiVec is a floating point and integer SIMD instruction set designed and owned by Apple, IBM and Freescale Semiconductor, formerly the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola, , and implemented on versions of the PowerPC including Motorola's G4, IBM's G5 and POWER6 processors, and P.A. Semi's...
extension.
Compliant cores
- Freescale Power PC e200PowerPC e200The PowerPC e200 is a family of 32-bit Power Architecture microprocessor cores developed by Freescale for primary use in automotive and industrial control systems...
, e500PowerPC e500The PowerPC e500 is a 32-bit Power Architecture-based microprocessor core from Freescale Semiconductor. The core is compatible with the older PowerPC Book E specification as well as the Power ISA v.2.03. It has a dual issue, seven-stage pipeline with FPUs , 32/32 KiB data and instruction L1 caches...
and e700PowerPC e700The PowerPC e700 or NG-64 was the codenames of the long anticipated first 64-bit embedded RISC-processor cores built using Power Architecture technology designed by Freescale. It was eventually revealed as the e5500 core.... - IBM PowerPC 405, 440, 460, 970PowerPC 970The PowerPC 970, PowerPC 970FX, PowerPC 970GX, and PowerPC 970MP, are 64-bit Power Architecture processors from IBM introduced in 2002. When used in Apple Inc. machines, they were dubbed the PowerPC G5....
, POWER5POWER5The POWER5 is a microprocessor developed and fabricated by IBM. It is an improved version of the highly successful POWER4. The principal improvements are support for simultaneous multithreading and an on-die memory controller...
and POWER6POWER6The POWER6 is a microprocessor developed by IBM that implemented the Power ISA v.2.03. When it became available in systems in 2007, it succeeded the POWER5+ as IBM's flagship Power microprocessor... - IBM Cell PPECell microprocessorCell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM, an alliance known as "STI". The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center in Austin, Texas over a four-year period beginning March 2001 on a...
Power ISA v.2.04
The specification for Power ISA v.2.04 was finalized in June 2007. It is based on Power ISA v.2.03 and includes changes primarily to the Book III-S part regarding virtualization, hypervisorHypervisor
In computing, a hypervisor, also called virtual machine manager , is one of many hardware virtualization techniques that allow multiple operating systems, termed guests, to run concurrently on a host computer. It is so named because it is conceptually one level higher than a supervisory program...
functionality, logical partitioning
LPAR
A logical partition, commonly called an LPAR, is a subset of computer's hardware resources, virtualized as a separate computer. In effect, a physical machine can be partitioned into multiple logical partitions, each hosting a separate operating system....
and virtual page handling.
Compliant cores
- Cores that comply with the Power ISA v.2.03
- The PA6TPWRficientPWRficient is the name of a series of microprocessors designed by P.A. Semi.PWRficient processors comply with the 64-bit Power Architecture, and are designed for high performance and extreme power efficiency...
core from P.A. Semi - TitanTitan (microprocessor)Titan was supposed to be a family of 32-bit Power Architecture-based microprocessor cores designed by Applied Micro Circuits Corporation , but was scrapped in 2010 according to reports...
from AMCC
Power ISA v.2.05
The specification for Power ISA v.2.05 was released in December 2007. It is based on Power ISA v.2.04 and includes changes primarily to Book I and Book III-S, including significant enhancements such as decimal arithmetic (Category: Decimal Floating-Point in Book I) and server hypervisor improvements.Compliant cores
- Cores that comply with the Power ISA v.2.04
- POWER6POWER6The POWER6 is a microprocessor developed by IBM that implemented the Power ISA v.2.03. When it became available in systems in 2007, it succeeded the POWER5+ as IBM's flagship Power microprocessor...
- PowerPC 476
Power ISA v.2.06
The specification for Power ISA v.2.06 was released in February 2009, and revised in July 2010. It is based on Power ISA v.2.05 and includes extensions for the POWER7 processor and e500-mc core. One significant new feature is vector-scalar floating-point instructions (VSX). Book III-E also includes significant enhancement for the embedded specification regarding hypervisor and virtualisation on single and multi core implementations.The spec was revised in November 2010 to the current Power ISA v.2.06 revision B spec, enhancing virtualisation features.
Compliant cores
- Cores that comply with the Power ISA v.2.05
- POWER7POWER7POWER7 is a Power Architecture microprocessor released in 2010 that succeeded the POWER6. POWER7 was developed by IBM at several sites including IBM's Rochester, MN; Austin, TX; Essex Junction, Vermont; T. J. Watson Research Center, NY; Bromont, QC and Böblingen, Germany laboratories...
- PowerPC A2PowerPC A2The PowerPC A2 is a massively multicore capable and multithreaded 64-bit Power Architecture processor core designed by IBM using the Power ISA v.2.06 specification. Versions of processors based on the A2 core range from a 2.3 GHz version with 16 cores consuming 65 W to a less powerful, four core...
- e500-mc and e5500PowerPC e5500The PowerPC e5500 is a 64-bit Power Architecture-based microprocessor core from Freescale Semiconductor. The core is compatible with the Power ISA v.2.06 with hypervisor support. It has a four issue, seven-stage out-of-order pipeline with a double precision FPU, three Integer units, 32/32 KB data...
cores
Processors
- MPC5000PowerPC 5000The PowerPC 5000 family is a series of Power Architecture microprocessors from Freescale and STMicroelectronics designed for automotive and industrial microcontroller and system on a chip use...
, PowerQUICCPowerQUICCPowerQUICC is the name for several Power Architecture based microcontrollers from Freescale Semiconductor. They are built around one or more PowerPC cores and the QUICC Engine which is a separate RISC core specialized in such tasks such as I/O, communications, ATM, security acceleration, networking...
and QorIQQorIQQorIQ is a brand of Power Architecture-based communications microprocessors from Freescale. It is the evolutionary step from the PowerQUICC platform and will be built around one or more Power Architecture e500mc cores and come in five different product platforms, P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5, segmented...
processors from Freescale - BlueGene/L and BlueGene/P processors for supercomputers by IBM
- Virtex FPGAs from XilinxXilinxXilinx, Inc. is a supplier of programmable logic devices. It is known for inventing the field programmable gate array and as the first semiconductor company with a fabless manufacturing model....
- V-Dragon CPU from Culturecom
- SeaStar, SeaStar2 and SeaStar+ communications processors in Cray XT3Cray XT3The Cray XT3 is a distributed memory massively parallel MIMD supercomputer designed by Cray Inc. with Sandia National Laboratories under the codename Red Storm. Cray turned the design into a commercial product in 2004...
, XT4Cray XT4The Cray XT4 is an updated version of the Cray XT3 supercomputer. It was released on November 18, 2006. It includes an updated version of the SeaStar interconnect router called SeaStar2, processor sockets for Socket AM2 Opteron processors, and 240-pin unbuffered DDR2 memory...
and XT5Cray XT5The Cray XT5 is an updated version of the Cray XT4 supercomputer, launched on November 6, 2007. It includes a faster version of the XT4's SeaStar2 interconnect router called SeaStar2+, and can be configured either with XT4 compute blades, which have four dual-core AMD Opteron processor sockets, or...
supercomputers
Systems
- System iIBM System iThe IBM System i is IBM's previous generation of midrange computer systems for IBM i users, and was subsequently replaced by the IBM Power Systems in April 2008....
, System pIBM System pThe System p, formerly known as RS/6000, was IBM's RISC/UNIX-based server and workstation product line.In April 2008, IBM announced a rebranding of the System p and its unification with the System i platform. The resulting product line is called IBM Power Systems.-History:It was originally a line...
, and Power SystemsIBM Power SystemsPower Systems is the name of IBM's Power Architecture-based server line.Before the Power Systems line was announced on April 2, 2008, IBM had two distinct Power-based lines: the System i running IBM i - and the System p series running AIX or Linux.- History :IBM had two discrete Power Architecture...
servers, and BlueGene supercomputers, from IBM - PowerMac, iBookIBookThe iBook was a line of laptop computers sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted the consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher-end line of laptop computers....
, and PowerBookPowerBookThe PowerBook was a line of Macintosh laptop computers that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1991 to 2006. During its lifetime, the PowerBook went through several major revisions and redesigns, often being the first to incorporate features that would later become...
computers, and pre-Intel iMacIMacThe iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers built by Apple. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through five distinct forms....
, Mac miniMac MiniThe Mac Mini is a small form factor desktop computer manufactured by Apple Inc. Like earlier mini-ITX PC designs, it is uncommonly small for a desktop computer: 7.7 inches square and 1.4 inches tall. It weighs 2.7 pounds...
, and XserveXserveXserve was a line of rack unit computers designed by Apple Inc. for use as servers. When the Xserve was introduced in 2002, it was Apple's first designated server hardware design since the Apple Network Server in 1996...
computers, from Apple - Bandai Pippin game system from Bandai (hardware and OS design by Apple)
- BeBoxBeBoxThe BeBox was a short-lived dual processor personal computer, offered by Be Inc. to run the company's own operating system, BeOS. Notable aspects of the system include its CPU configuration, I/O board with "GeekPort", and "Blinkenlights" on the front bezel....
from Be Inc.Be Inc.Be Incorporated was an American computer company founded in 1990, best known for the Be Operating System and BeBox personal computer. Be was founded by former Apple Computer executive Jean-Louis Gassée with capital from Seymour Cray....
(discontinued) - PegasosPegasosPegasos is a MicroATX motherboard powered by a PowerPC 750CXe or PowerPC 7447 microprocessor, featuring three PCI slots, one AGP slot, two Ethernet ports , USB, DDR, AC'97 sound, and FireWire...
/Open Desktop WorkstationOpen Desktop WorkstationThe Open Desktop Workstation, also referred to as ODW is a PowerPC based computer, by San Antonio-based Genesi. The ODW has an interchangeable CPU card allowing for a wide range of Power Architecture based microprocessors from IBM and Freescale Semiconductor.It is a standardized version of the...
and EFIKAEFIKAEfika are a line of mobile computing Power Architecture and ARM architecture based computers manufactured by Genesi.In Esperanto efika means "efficacious, effective, or efficient".-Efika 5200B:...
PowerPC based computers from GenesiGenesiGenesi is computer company focused on building Power Architecture and ARM architecture computers. The organization is split into two units, Genesi USA, Inc. working out of Texas operating as the primary front-end for sales, customers and developers, and bplan GmbH based in Germany as the primary... - Sam440ep and Sam460exSam460exSam460ex is a line of modular motherboards produced by the Italian company ACube Systems Srl. The machine was released in October 2010 and can run AmigaOS 4 or Debian GNU/Linux....
motherboards from ACube Systems - TiVoTiVoTiVo is a digital video recorder developed and marketed by TiVo, Inc. and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "Season Pass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList"...
series 1 DVR - Cell BE and PowerPC based computers from MercuryMercury Computer SystemsMercury Computer Systems, Inc. provides high-performance embedded, real-time digital signal and image processing solutions.Mercury designs and builds embedded multicomputers, which may be considered to be either loosely coupled NUMA computers or tightly coupled clusters. Despite being marketed as...
- GameCube, WiiWiiThe Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
and Wii U game consoles from Nintendo - Xbox 360Xbox 360The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
from Microsoft - PlayStation 3PlayStation 3The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
and ZEGOZegoThe ZEGO is a rackmount server platform built by Sony, targeted for the video postproduction and broadcast markets. The platform is based on Sony's PlayStation 3 as it features both the Cell Processor as well as the RSX 'Reality Synthesizer'...
from Sony - QPACEQPACEQPACE is pursuing the development of a massive parallel, scalable supercomputer for applications in lattice quantum chromodynamics . The machine structure is a three-dimensional torus of identical processing nodes, based on IBM's PowerXCell 8i processors...
, a PowerXCell 8i processor based supercomputer for quantum chromodynamicsQuantum chromodynamicsIn theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics is a theory of the strong interaction , a fundamental force describing the interactions of the quarks and gluons making up hadrons . It is the study of the SU Yang–Mills theory of color-charged fermions...
calculations. - RAD6000RAD6000The RAD6000 radiation-hardened single board computer, based on the IBM RISC Single Chip CPU, was manufactured by IBM Federal Systems. IBM Federal Systems was sold to Loral, and by way of acquisition, ended up with Lockheed Martin and is currently a part of BAE Systems...
and RAD750RAD750The RAD750 is a radiation-hardened single board computer, based on IBM's PowerPC 750. The successor of the RAD6000, the RAD750 is manufactured by BAE Systems Electronic Solutions. It is intended for use in high radiation environments such as experienced on board satellites and spacecraft...
, radiation hardened platforms by BAE SystemsBAE SystemsBAE Systems plc is a British multinational defence, security and aerospace company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that has global interests, particularly in North America through its subsidiary BAE Systems Inc. BAE is among the world's largest military contractors; in 2009 it was the...
for use in space - Routers from Cisco
- Printers, cars, aircraft, medical imaging, telecom equipment, spacecraft, RIPsRaster image processorA raster image processor is a component used in a printing system which produces a raster image also known as a bitmap. The bitmap is then sent to a printing device for output. The input may be a page description in a high-level page description language such as PostScript, Portable Document...
, set top boxes, etc., from a multitude of companies.
Operating systems
- LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
from various vendors- CRUX PPC which has been considered eligible to adopt and use Power Source Logo from Power.org
- Yellow Dog LinuxYellow Dog LinuxYellow Dog Linux, also known as YDL, is a free and open source operating system for high performance computing on multicore architectures. It focuses on GPU systems and computers using the Power Architecture . YDL is currently developed by Fixstars...
from Terra Soft which is specialized for Power Architecture hardware - MkLinuxMkLinuxMkLinux is an open source computer operating system started by the OSF Research Institute and Apple Computer in February 1996 to port Linux to the PowerPC platform, and Macintosh computers...
from Apple, based on MachMach (kernel)Mach is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computation. Although Mach is often mentioned as one of the earliest examples of a microkernel, not all versions of Mach are microkernels...
micro kernel
- NetBSDNetBSDNetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
, OpenBSDOpenBSDOpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...
, FreeBSDFreeBSDFreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
and OpenDarwin - Classic Mac OSMac OSMac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
and Mac OS XMac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
from Apple - OS/2OS/2OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
, AIXAIX operating systemAIX AIX AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive, pronounced "a i ex" is a series of proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM for several of its computer platforms...
and i5/OS from IBM - SolarisSolaris Operating SystemSolaris is a Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems. It superseded their earlier SunOS in 1993. Oracle Solaris, as it is now known, has been owned by Oracle Corporation since Oracle's acquisition of Sun in January 2010....
from SunSun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and OpenSolarisOpenSolarisOpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software... - Windows NTWindows NTWindows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
from MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... - Plan 9Plan 9 from Bell LabsPlan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system. It was developed primarily for research purposes as the successor to Unix by the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs between the mid-1980s and 2002...
from Bell LabsBell LabsBell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its... - BeOSBeOSBeOS is an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...
from Be Inc.Be Inc.Be Incorporated was an American computer company founded in 1990, best known for the Be Operating System and BeBox personal computer. Be was founded by former Apple Computer executive Jean-Louis Gassée with capital from Seymour Cray.... - OS-9OS-9OS-9 is a family of real-time, process-based, multitasking, multi-user, Unix-like operating systems, developed in the 1980s, originally by Microware Systems Corporation for the Motorola 6809 microprocessor. It is currently owned by RadiSys Corporation....
from RadiSysRadiSysRadiSys Corporation is publicly traded company that makes embedded systems and related technology, located in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1987 in Oregon by former employees of Intel, the company went public in 1995... - eCosECoseCos is an open source, royalty-free, real-time operating system intended for embedded systems and applications which need only one process with multiple threads. It is designed to be customizable to precise application requirements of run-time performance and hardware needs...
open source RTOS - INTEGRITYIntegrity (operating system)INTEGRITY is a real-time operating system produced and marketed by Green Hills Software. It is royalty-free, POSIX-certified, and intended for use in embedded systems needing reliability, availability, and fault tolerance. It is built atop the velOSity microkernel and is intended mainly for modern...
from Green Hills SoftwareGreen Hills SoftwareGreen Hills Software is a privately owned company that builds operating systems and development tools for embedded systems. The company was founded in 1982 by Dan O'Dowd and Carl Rosenberg... - uC/OS-IIMicroC/OS-IIMicroC/OS-II , is a low-cost priority-based pre-emptive real-time multitasking operating system kernel for microprocessors, written mainly in the C programming language...
from Micrium - VxWorksVxWorksVxWorks is a real-time operating system developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems of Alameda, California, USA. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems.- History :...
from Wind RiverWind River SystemsWind River Systems, Inc. is a company providing embedded systems, development tools for embedded systems, middleware, and other types of software. The company was founded in Berkeley, California in 1981 by Jerry Fiddler and David Wilner. On June 4, 2009, Wind River announced that Intel had bought... - QNXQNXQNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed by Canadian company, QNX Software Systems, which was later acquired by Canadian BlackBerry-producer Research In Motion.-Description:As a microkernel-based...
- LynxOSLynxOSThe LynxOS RTOS is a Unix-like real-time operating system from LynuxWorks . Sometimes known as the Lynx Operating System, LynxOS features full POSIX conformance and, more recently, Linux compatibility...
from LynuxWorksLynuxWorksLynuxWorks, Inc. is a San Jose, California software company founded in 1988. LynuxWorks produces embedded operating systems and tools for using full virtualization and paravirtualization in embedded systems... - OSEOperating System EmbeddedThe Operating System Embedded is a real-time embedded operating system created by the Swedish information technology company ENEA AB. Bengt Eliasson, who at the time was a consultant from ENEA with an assignment at Ericsson, wrote the basic parts of the kernel...
from ENEAENEA ABENEA is global information technology company with its headquarters in Kista, Sweden that provides real-time operating systems and consulting services... - MorphOSMorphOSMorphOS is an Amiga-compatible computer operating system. It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the...
from MorphOS Team - AmigaOS 4AmigaOS 4AmigaOS 4, , is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner...
from Hyperion EntertainmentHyperion EntertainmentHyperion Entertainment CVBA is a Belgian software company which in its early years focused in porting Windows games to Amiga, Linux and Macintosh. Later on, they were contracted by Amiga Incorporated to develop AmigaOS 4 and retired from the gaming business...
External links
- 27 years of IBM RISC
- POWER to the people – A history of chipmaking at IBM
- Power Architecture Primer
- PowerPC transition to Power Architecture Guidelines
- Power.org
- IBM's Power Architecture site
- Freescale's Power Architecture site
- Applied Micro's embedded processor site
- Mercury's Cell BE site
- Tundra's homepage
- Culturecom's V-Dragon site
- Genesi's homepage
- Linux/PPC homepage