S1 Core
Encyclopedia
S1 Core is an open source
hardware
microprocessor
design developed by Simply RISC
. Based on Sun Microsystems
' UltraSPARC T1
, the S1 Core is licensed under the GNU General Public License
, which is the license Sun chose for the OpenSPARC
project.
The main goal of the project is to keep the S1 Core as simple as possible to encourage developers. The major differences between T1 and S1 include:
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
hardware
Open source hardware
Open source hardware consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered in the same manner as free and open source software . Open source hardware is part of the open source culture movement and applies a like concept to a variety of components. The term usually means that...
microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
design developed by Simply RISC
Simply RISC
Simply RISC is a fabless semiconductor company based in Bristol and Catania.- Products :Simply RISC's first product is the S1 Core, a cutdown version of the OpenSPARC T1 microprocessor.- External links :* * *...
. Based on Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
' UltraSPARC T1
UltraSPARC T1
|right|262px|UltraSPARC T1 processorSun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor, known until its 14 November 2005 announcement by its development codename "Niagara", is a multithreading, multicore CPU...
, the S1 Core is licensed under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, which is the license Sun chose for the OpenSPARC
OpenSPARC
OpenSPARC is an open-source hardware project started in December 2005. The initial contribution to the project was Sun Microsystems' register-transfer level Verilog code for a full 64-bit, 32-thread microprocessor, the UltraSPARC T1 processor. On 21 March 2006, Sun released the source code to the...
project.
The main goal of the project is to keep the S1 Core as simple as possible to encourage developers. The major differences between T1 and S1 include:
- S1 Core only has one 64-bit SPARCSPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
Core (supporting one to four independent threads of execution) instead of eight cores; - S1 Core adds a WishboneWishbone (computer bus)The Wishbone Bus is an open source hardware computer bus intended to let the parts of an integrated circuit communicate with each other. The aim is to allow the connection of differing cores to each other inside of a chip...
bridge, a reset controller and a basic interrupt controller; - the S1 Core environment can be run using only free tools on a common x86 Linux machine.