BiiN
Encyclopedia
BiiN was a company created out of a joint research project by Intel and Siemens
to develop fault tolerant high-performance multi-processor computer
s build on custom microprocessor
designs. BiiN was an outgrowth of the Intel iAPX 432
multiprocessor
project, ancestor of iPSC
and nCUBE
.
The company was closed down in October 1989, and folded in April 1990, with no significant sales. The whole project was considered within Intel to have been so poorly managed that the company name was considered to be an acronym for Billions Invested In Nothing. However, several subset versions of the processor designed for the project were later offered commercially as versions of the Intel i960
, which became popular as an embedded processor in the mid-1990s.
The core development labs were located on an Intel site in Portland, OR, but there were also Siemens labs in Berlin, Germany, (Sietec Systemtechnik, Maxim Ehrlich's team creating the Gemini DBMS), Vienna, Austria, and also Nuremberg, Germany, involved in the development.
Since neither Siemens nor Intel could see how to market this new architecture if it were broken up, in 1985 the project became BiiN Partners, and in July 1988 was launched as a company wholly owned by Intel and Siemens. A second company wholly owned by Intel, called BiiN Federal Systems, was also created in order to avoid Foreign Ownership and Controlling Interest (FOCI) problems in selling to the US government. Intel owned all the silicon designs which were licensed to Siemens, while Siemens owned all the software and documentation and licensed them to Intel.
BiiN aimed their designs at the high-end fault tolerant market, competing with Tandem Computers
and Stratus Computer, as opposed to the parallel processing
market, where Sequent Computer Systems
, Pyramid Technology
, Alliant Computer Systems
and others were operating. In order to compete here they had to make sure their first designs were as powerful as the best from the other vendors, and by the time such a system was ready both Intel and Siemens had spent about 300 million with no shipping units.
In 1989 Siemens underwent a reorganization, which brought UBEs own computer division into the mix. They had long been working with Sequent Computer Systems
, and were sceptical that the BiiN systems would deliver anything that the Sequent systems could not. Eventually Intel and Siemens could not agree on further funding, and the venture ended. Several pre-orders on the books were cancelled, and the technology essentially disappeared.
With the closing of the project, Intel used the basic RISC core of the CPU design as the basis for the i960 CPU. For this role most of the "advanced" features were removed, including the complex tagged memory system, task control system, most of the microcode
and even the FPU
. The result was a "naked" core, useful for embedded
processor use. Before Intel switched to the StrongARM
for the embedded role in the late 1990s, the i960 was one of Intel's most popular products.
One odd historical footnote is that Hughes Aircraft
had licensed the silicon designs for use in the Advanced Tactical Fighter (now the F-22 Raptor
), where it apparently continues to be used today.
. Like the i432
, the 960 MX included tagged memory for complete memory protection
even within programs (as opposed to most CPU's, which offer protection only between programs), a full set of instructions for task control
, and complex microcode to run it all.
Unlike the i432
, the 960 MX had fairly good performance, mostly as a side effect of dramatically reducing the complexity of the core instruction set, integration of all CPU functions on a single chip, and including an FPU. The CPUs were hosted on cards that included an I/O support CPU and either 8 to 16MB of RAM.
Two systems were designed, the BiiN 20 was an entry-level machine with one or two processors, and an interesting battery-backed disk-cache. The larger BiiN 60 was similar, but supported up to eight CPUs. Both machines could be used in larger multi-machine systems.
One interesting feature of the BiiN was that the CPU sets could be used to provide either fault tolerance, as in the Tandem systems, or parallel processing, as in the Pyramid and Sequent systems. This allowed users to tailor their systems to their needs, even on the fly. The BiiN systems also provided two versions of fault tolerance. In fault-checking mode, processors were paired so that they could check one another's calculations. In event of an error, the processors would stop, and the circuitry would determine which was faulty. This processor would then be excluded from the system, and the computer would re-start. In continuous operation mode the fault-checking pairs were duplicated, so that if an error occurred the second pair could immediately take over the calculations.
Also of historical note was that the operating system (OSIRIS), applications, development tools, and every other piece of BiiN software was written exclusively in Ada — perhaps the largest non-military use of that programming language.
There was a command line interpreter CLI, that resembled a lot command shells' functionality only a couple of years later, like editable history and so forth.
Documentation for Gemini was done in troff
with a project proprietary set of macros by the name of Scribe (IIRC).
Development for Gemini happened on VAX
es running BSD Unix.
Siemens AG
Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is the largest Europe-based electronics and electrical engineering company....
to develop fault tolerant high-performance multi-processor computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s build on custom 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...
designs. BiiN was an outgrowth of the Intel iAPX 432
Intel iAPX 432
The Intel iAPX 432 was a commercially unsuccessful 32-bit microprocessor architecture, introduced in 1981.The project was Intel's first 32-bit microprocessor design, and intended to be the company's main product line for the 1980s. Many advanced multitasking and memory management features were...
multiprocessor
Multiprocessor
Computer system having two or more processing units each sharing main memory and peripherals, in order to simultaneously process programs.Sometimes the term Multiprocessor is confused with the term Multiprocessing....
project, ancestor of iPSC
Intel iPSC
The Intel iPSC is a parallel computer. It was superseded by the Intel iPSC/2. iPSC also more generally refers to the particular line of Intel parallel computers, which includes the iPSC/2 and the iPSC/860. Acronym "iPSC" means "Intel Personal SuperComputer"....
and nCUBE
NCUBE
nCUBE was a series of parallel computing computers from the company of the same name. Early generations of the hardware used a custom microprocessor...
.
The company was closed down in October 1989, and folded in April 1990, with no significant sales. The whole project was considered within Intel to have been so poorly managed that the company name was considered to be an acronym for Billions Invested In Nothing. However, several subset versions of the processor designed for the project were later offered commercially as versions of the Intel i960
Intel i960
Intel's i960 was a RISC-based microprocessor design that became popular during the early 1990s as an embedded microcontroller, becoming a best-selling CPU in that field, along with the competing AMD 29000...
, which became popular as an embedded processor in the mid-1990s.
History
BiiN began in 1982 as Gemini, a research project equally funded by Intel and Siemens. The project's aim was to design and build a complete system for so-called "mission critical" computing, such as on-line transaction processing, industrial control applications (such as managing nuclear reactors), military applications intolerant of computer down-time, and national television services. The central themes of the R&D effort were to be transparent multiprocessing and file distribution, dynamically switchable fault tolerance, and a high level of security. Siemens provided the funding through its energy division UBE (Unternehmensbereich Energietechnik), who had an interest in fault tolerant computers for use in nuclear installations, while Intel provided the technology, and the whole project was organised with alternate layers of Siemens and Intel management and engineers. Siemens staff stemmed from its various divisions, not just UBE (where the project unit was called E85G).The core development labs were located on an Intel site in Portland, OR, but there were also Siemens labs in Berlin, Germany, (Sietec Systemtechnik, Maxim Ehrlich's team creating the Gemini DBMS), Vienna, Austria, and also Nuremberg, Germany, involved in the development.
Since neither Siemens nor Intel could see how to market this new architecture if it were broken up, in 1985 the project became BiiN Partners, and in July 1988 was launched as a company wholly owned by Intel and Siemens. A second company wholly owned by Intel, called BiiN Federal Systems, was also created in order to avoid Foreign Ownership and Controlling Interest (FOCI) problems in selling to the US government. Intel owned all the silicon designs which were licensed to Siemens, while Siemens owned all the software and documentation and licensed them to Intel.
BiiN aimed their designs at the high-end fault tolerant market, competing with Tandem Computers
Tandem Computers
Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applications requiring maximum uptime and zero data loss. The company was founded in...
and Stratus Computer, as opposed to the parallel processing
Parallel processing
Parallel processing is the ability to carry out multiple operations or tasks simultaneously. The term is used in the contexts of both human cognition, particularly in the ability of the brain to simultaneously process incoming stimuli, and in parallel computing by machines.-Parallel processing by...
market, where Sequent Computer Systems
Sequent Computer Systems
Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was a computer company that designed and manufactured multiprocessing computer systems. They were among the pioneers in high-performance symmetric multiprocessing open systems, innovating in both hardware and software Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was...
, Pyramid Technology
Pyramid Technology
Pyramid Technology Corporation was a computer company that produced a number of RISC-based minicomputers at the upper end of the performance range. They also became the second company to ship a multiprocessor Unix system , in 1985, which formed the basis of their product line into the early 1990s...
, Alliant Computer Systems
Alliant Computer Systems
Alliant Computer Systems was a computer company that designed and manufactured parallel computing systems. Together with Pyramid Technology and Sequent Computer Systems, Alliant's machines pioneered the symmetric multiprocessing market...
and others were operating. In order to compete here they had to make sure their first designs were as powerful as the best from the other vendors, and by the time such a system was ready both Intel and Siemens had spent about 300 million with no shipping units.
In 1989 Siemens underwent a reorganization, which brought UBEs own computer division into the mix. They had long been working with Sequent Computer Systems
Sequent Computer Systems
Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was a computer company that designed and manufactured multiprocessing computer systems. They were among the pioneers in high-performance symmetric multiprocessing open systems, innovating in both hardware and software Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was...
, and were sceptical that the BiiN systems would deliver anything that the Sequent systems could not. Eventually Intel and Siemens could not agree on further funding, and the venture ended. Several pre-orders on the books were cancelled, and the technology essentially disappeared.
With the closing of the project, Intel used the basic RISC core of the CPU design as the basis for the i960 CPU. For this role most of the "advanced" features were removed, including the complex tagged memory system, task control system, most of the microcode
Microcode
Microcode is a layer of hardware-level instructions and/or data structures involved in the implementation of higher level machine code instructions in many computers and other processors; it resides in special high-speed memory and translates machine instructions into sequences of detailed...
and even the FPU
Floating point unit
A 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...
. The result was a "naked" core, useful for embedded
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...
processor use. Before Intel switched to the StrongARM
StrongARM
The StrongARM is a family of microprocessors that implemented the ARM V4 instruction set architecture . It was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and later sold to Intel, who continued to manufacture it before replacing it with the XScale....
for the embedded role in the late 1990s, the i960 was one of Intel's most popular products.
One odd historical footnote is that Hughes Aircraft
Hughes Aircraft
Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded in 1932 by Howard Hughes in Culver City, California as a division of Hughes Tool Company...
had licensed the silicon designs for use in the Advanced Tactical Fighter (now the F-22 Raptor
F-22 Raptor
The Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is a single-seat, twin-engine fifth-generation supermaneuverable fighter aircraft that uses stealth technology. It was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities that include ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals...
), where it apparently continues to be used today.
Description
Key to the BiiN system was the 960 MX processor, essentially a RISC-based version of the earlier i432Intel iAPX 432
The Intel iAPX 432 was a commercially unsuccessful 32-bit microprocessor architecture, introduced in 1981.The project was Intel's first 32-bit microprocessor design, and intended to be the company's main product line for the 1980s. Many advanced multitasking and memory management features were...
. Like the i432
Intel iAPX 432
The Intel iAPX 432 was a commercially unsuccessful 32-bit microprocessor architecture, introduced in 1981.The project was Intel's first 32-bit microprocessor design, and intended to be the company's main product line for the 1980s. Many advanced multitasking and memory management features were...
, the 960 MX included tagged memory for complete memory protection
Memory protection
Memory protection is a way to control memory access rights on a computer, and is a part of most modern operating systems. The main purpose of memory protection is to prevent a process from accessing memory that has not been allocated to it. This prevents a bug within a process from affecting...
even within programs (as opposed to most CPU's, which offer protection only between programs), a full set of instructions for task control
Computer multitasking
In computing, multitasking is a method where multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for...
, and complex microcode to run it all.
Unlike the i432
Intel iAPX 432
The Intel iAPX 432 was a commercially unsuccessful 32-bit microprocessor architecture, introduced in 1981.The project was Intel's first 32-bit microprocessor design, and intended to be the company's main product line for the 1980s. Many advanced multitasking and memory management features were...
, the 960 MX had fairly good performance, mostly as a side effect of dramatically reducing the complexity of the core instruction set, integration of all CPU functions on a single chip, and including an FPU. The CPUs were hosted on cards that included an I/O support CPU and either 8 to 16MB of RAM.
Two systems were designed, the BiiN 20 was an entry-level machine with one or two processors, and an interesting battery-backed disk-cache. The larger BiiN 60 was similar, but supported up to eight CPUs. Both machines could be used in larger multi-machine systems.
One interesting feature of the BiiN was that the CPU sets could be used to provide either fault tolerance, as in the Tandem systems, or parallel processing, as in the Pyramid and Sequent systems. This allowed users to tailor their systems to their needs, even on the fly. The BiiN systems also provided two versions of fault tolerance. In fault-checking mode, processors were paired so that they could check one another's calculations. In event of an error, the processors would stop, and the circuitry would determine which was faulty. This processor would then be excluded from the system, and the computer would re-start. In continuous operation mode the fault-checking pairs were duplicated, so that if an error occurred the second pair could immediately take over the calculations.
Also of historical note was that the operating system (OSIRIS), applications, development tools, and every other piece of BiiN software was written exclusively in Ada — perhaps the largest non-military use of that programming language.
There was a command line interpreter CLI, that resembled a lot command shells' functionality only a couple of years later, like editable history and so forth.
Documentation for Gemini was done in troff
Troff
troff is a document processing system developed by AT&T for the Unix operating system.-History:troff can trace its origins back to a text formatting program called RUNOFF, written by Jerome H. Saltzer for MIT's CTSS operating system in the mid-1960s...
with a project proprietary set of macros by the name of Scribe (IIRC).
Development for Gemini happened on VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
es running BSD Unix.