Integrated MMU, cache raise system-level issues
Computer Design
Series 32000 programmer's reference manual
Series 32000 programmer's reference manual
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
A study of branch prediction strategies
ISCA '81 Proceedings of the 8th annual symposium on Computer Architecture
Experimental evaluation of on-chip microprocessor cache memories
ISCA '84 Proceedings of the 11th annual international symposium on Computer architecture
An economical solution to the cache coherence problem
ISCA '84 Proceedings of the 11th annual international symposium on Computer architecture
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The authors examine the performance, cost, and schedule tradeoffs made for the NS 32532, a 32-bit general-purpose microprocessor. Among its features are a 30-MHz clock frequency, three on-chip caches, a four-stage pipeline, and dedicated mechanisms for multiprocessing support. The authors describe the design constraints set by the VLSI processing and packaging technologies. They address the issue of market requirements by examining the software and hardware considerations for the microprocessor's target applications. After describing the functional partitioning choices, including the means for supporting a memory hierarchy and floating-point operations, they present the NS32532's microarchitecture. They then examine the microprocessor's system interface, the memory reference transactions, and the instruction-flow and data-flow monitoring mechanisms. Finally, the authors present an overview of the methodology adopted to accomplish the design within a strict schedule while achieving full functionality and meeting cost and performance goals.