[comp.arch] IBM RS6000 POWER Information

campbell@sauron.Columbia.NCR.COM (Mark Campbell) (04/10/90)

(I apologize if this has been covered before...I just got back
 to town.)

I'm looking for references to the RS6000's POWER microprocessor.
Magazine articles, conference proceedings, or even hype would be
useful as long as they dealt with the processor and/or
processor/memory -- I've got the usual run of "UNIX World" and
"IBM Release Notes" stuff.

It's probably too much to ask for, but does anyone know of a
POWER Programmers Reference Manual?

A couple of immediate questions concerning POWER itself:

	1) How many integer units?
	2) How many floating point units?
	3) Anyone know the reason for the 128-byte cache line
	   size in the D-cache?  Seems large...
	4) Details of scrubbing -- is it done on the memory 
	   hardware itself, by the DCU's, or what?

If this has been covered previously, I'd appreciate it if
someone would just mail me a summary.  Thanks.

-- 
					      Mark Campbell
					      mark.campbell@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM

ryg@lanl.gov (Richard S Grandy) (04/11/90)

In article <2121@sauron.Columbia.NCR.COM>, campbell@sauron.Columbia.NCR.COM (Mark Campbell) writes:
> I'm looking for references to the RS6000's POWER microprocessor.
> Magazine articles, conference proceedings, ......

I just started looking at an IBM publication our local salesman gave
me.  It's about 200 pages split between hardware and software 'papers'.
So far it looks pretty good.

	"IBM RISC System/6000 Technology"
	'Copies of this book, SA23-2619, can
	be obtained from the local IBM branch
	office.'

Rick Grandy
BCS, Richland