PWRficient
Encyclopedia
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. The processors are highly modular and can be combined to multi-core
system-on-a-chip
designs, combining CPU, northbridge
, and southbridge
functionality on a single processor die
.
The PA6T is the first processor core from P.A. Semi, and it is offered in two distinct lines of products, 16xxM dual core processors and 13xxM/E single core processors. The PA6T lines differ in their L2 cache
size, their memory controller
s, their communication functionality, and their cryptography offloading features. In the future P.A. Semi plans to offer parts with up to 16 cores.
The PA6T core is the first Power Architecture core to be designed from scratch outside the AIM alliance
(i.e. not designed by IBM
, Motorola
/Freescale, or Apple Inc.) in ten years. Since Texas Instruments
is one of the investors in P.A. Semi, it is suggested that their fabrication plants will be used to manufacture the PWRficient processors.
PWRficient processors were initially shipped to select customers in February 2007 and were released for worldwide sale in Q4 2007.
P.A. Semi was bought by Apple Inc. in April 2008, and closed down development of PWRficient architecture processors. However, it will continue to manufacture, sell and support these components for the foreseeable future due to an agreement with the US Government
, as the processors are used in some military applications.
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...
.
PWRficient processors comply with 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...
Power Architecture
Power Architecture
Power Architecture is a broad term to describe similar RISC instruction sets for microprocessors developed and manufactured by such companies as IBM, Freescale, AMCC, Tundra and P.A. Semi...
, and are designed for high performance and extreme power efficiency. The processors are highly modular and can be combined to multi-core
Multi-core (computing)
A multi-core processor is a single computing component with two or more independent actual processors , which are the units that read and execute program instructions...
system-on-a-chip
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, combining CPU, northbridge
Northbridge (computing)
The northbridge has historically been one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a PC motherboard, the other being the southbridge. Increasingly these functions have migrated to the CPU chip itself, beginning with memory and graphics controllers. For Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion...
, and southbridge
Southbridge (computing)
The southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a personal computer motherboard, the other being the northbridge. The southbridge typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture. In Intel chipset...
functionality on a single processor die
Die (integrated circuit)
A die in the context of integrated circuits is a small block of semiconducting material, on which a given functional circuit is fabricated.Typically, integrated circuits are produced in large batches on a single wafer of electronic-grade silicon or other semiconductor through processes such as...
.
The PA6T is the first processor core from P.A. Semi, and it is offered in two distinct lines of products, 16xxM dual core processors and 13xxM/E single core processors. The PA6T lines differ in their L2 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...
size, their memory controller
Memory controller
The memory controller is a digital circuit which manages the flow of data going to and from the main memory. It can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as on the die of a microprocessor...
s, their communication functionality, and their cryptography offloading features. In the future P.A. Semi plans to offer parts with up to 16 cores.
The PA6T core is the first Power Architecture core to be designed from scratch outside 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...
(i.e. not designed by 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...
, 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...
/Freescale, or Apple Inc.) in ten years. Since Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
is one of the investors in P.A. Semi, it is suggested that their fabrication plants will be used to manufacture the PWRficient processors.
PWRficient processors were initially shipped to select customers in February 2007 and were released for worldwide sale in Q4 2007.
P.A. Semi was bought by Apple Inc. in April 2008, and closed down development of PWRficient architecture processors. However, it will continue to manufacture, sell and support these components for the foreseeable future due to an agreement with the US Government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
, as the processors are used in some military applications.
CPU
PA6T- SuperscalarSuperscalarA superscalar CPU architecture implements a form of parallelism called instruction level parallelism within a single processor. It therefore allows faster CPU throughput than would otherwise be possible at a given clock rate...
, out-of-orderOut-of-order executionIn 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...
32-bit32-bitThe 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....
/64-bit64-bit64-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...
Power ArchitecturePower ArchitecturePower Architecture is a broad term to describe similar RISC instruction sets for microprocessors developed and manufactured by such companies as IBM, Freescale, AMCC, Tundra and P.A. Semi...
processor core - Adheres to the Power ISA v.2.04
- Little endian or big endianEndiannessIn 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...
operation - 64/64 KiB instruction and data L1 cachesCPU cacheA 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...
. 32 GB/s bandwidth. - Six execution unitExecution unitIn computer engineering, an execution unit is a part of a CPU that performs the operations and calculations called for by the Branch Unit, which receives data from the CPU...
s including a double precisionDouble precisionIn 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...
FPUFloating 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...
and 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...
unit - HypervisorHypervisorIn 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...
and virtualization support - Maximum 7 W at 2 GHz
- 11 million transistors, 10 mm² large @ 65 nm.
Memory system
CONEXIUM- scalable cross-bar interconnect
- 1–8 SMPSymmetric multiprocessingIn computing, symmetric multiprocessing involves a multiprocessor computer hardware architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory and are controlled by a single OS instance. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
cores - 1–2 L2 cacheCPU cacheA 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...
s, 512 KiB – 8 MiBMIBMIB may refer to any of several concepts:* Master of International Business, a postgraduate business degree* Melayu Islam Beraja, the adopted national philosophy of Brunei* Motion induced blindness, a visual illusion in peripheral vision...
large. 16 GB/s bandwidth. - 1–4 1067 MHz DDR2DDR2 SDRAMDDR2 SDRAM is a double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory interface. It supersedes the original DDR SDRAM specification and has itself been superseded by DDR3 SDRAM...
memory controllerMemory controllerThe memory controller is a digital circuit which manages the flow of data going to and from the main memory. It can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as on the die of a microprocessor...
s. 16 GB/s bandwidth. - 64 GB/s peak bandwidth
- MOESIMOESI protocolIn computing, MOESI is a full cache coherency protocol that encompasses all of the possible states commonly used in other protocols. In addition to the four common MESI protocol states, there is a fifth "Owned" state representing data that is both modified and shared. This avoids the need to...
coherency
I/O
ENVOI- Centralized DMADirect memory accessDirect memory access is a feature of modern computers that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system memory independently of the central processing unit ....
engine, 32 GB/s bandwidth - 16–64 SerDesSerDesA Serializer/Deserializer is a pair of functional blocks commonly used in high speed communications to compensate for limited input/output. These blocks convert data between serial data and parallel interfaces in each direction...
lanes - XAUIXAUIXAUI is a standard for extending the XGMII between the MAC and PHY layer of 10 Gigabit Ethernet . XAUI is pronounced "zowie", a concatenation of the Roman numeral X, meaning ten, and the initials of "Attachment Unit Interface"...
- PCI ExpressPCI ExpressPCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards...
- SGMII
- Offload engine for cryptographyCryptographyCryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
, RAIDRAIDRAID is a storage technology that combines multiple disk drive components into a logical unit...
, TCPTransmission Control ProtocolThe Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...
Notable users
- Curtiss-WrightCurtiss-WrightThe Curtiss-Wright Corporation was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the United States at the end of World War II, but has evolved to largely become a component manufacturer, specializing in actuators, aircraft controls, valves, and metalworking....
will use the 1682M processor in its signal processingSignal processingSignal processing is an area of systems engineering, electrical engineering and applied mathematics that deals with operations on or analysis of signals, in either discrete or continuous time...
systems. http://pasemi.com/news/pr_2007_12_20a.html - Mercury Computer SystemsMercury 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...
will use the 1682M processor in its signalSignal processingSignal processing is an area of systems engineering, electrical engineering and applied mathematics that deals with operations on or analysis of signals, in either discrete or continuous time...
and image processingImage processingIn electrical engineering and computer science, image processing is any form of signal processing for which the input is an image, such as a photograph or video frame; the output of image processing may be either an image or, a set of characteristics or parameters related to the image...
systems. http://www.forbes.com/prnewswire/feeds/prnewswire/2008/02/21/prnewswire200802211030PR_NEWS_USPR_____NETH062.html - NECNEC, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
will use the 1682M processor in its storage array systems. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/14/pasemi_takes_nec/ - AmigaOne X1000AmigaOne X1000AmigaOne X1000 is a PowerPC based computer intended as a high-end platform for AmigaOS 4. It was announced by A-Eon Technology CVBA in partnership with Hyperion Entertainment and is expected in late 2011...
uses the 1682M processor as CPU.http://a-eon.com/x1000.html