This article focuses primarily on CLIPPER's
instruction set architecture, and examines the design architecture and related issues such as performance, design tradeoffs, design implications, and areas for possible future expansion.
With the LMC model, the behavior of the Little Man (e.g., control unit) is described at a high level for each instruction in the
instruction set. For example, Englander explains the fetch-execute activities of the LOAD instruction this way: The Little Man walks over to the mailbox address specified in the instruction.
Fir st of all, the
instruction set and the relative performance of instructions have changed over the years.
Chief among these is the use of a VLIW
instruction set. VLIW
instruction sets have a reputation of being tough to program.
New instructions in the microcode embedded in the processor will make 3-D, graphics, video, speech synthesis, compression and encryption blazingly fast - in effect extending the MMX
instruction set. But only after software developers have rewritten applications to specifically take advantage of the new instructions - so don't expect word processors and spreadsheets to be much faster.
An AMD Geode GX 466 at 0.9W processor provides the flexibility of the x86
instruction set with the power to run popular operating systems.
The TX7901 MIPS reduced
instruction set computer (RISC) processor-based AVM79R reference design is a leading-edge evaluation system targeted at media center applications.
instruction set with digital signal processing instructions.
IKE does not use the arithmetic operations of an average CPU
instruction set. Rather than utilizing 32-bit integers or 64-bit floating point, key exchange heavily depends on extended precision modular arithmetic using 512-, 1024, or even 2048-bit integers.
Intel Corp and its co-partner Hewlett-Packard Co are set to reveal the IA-64
instruction set today, in an announcement that has been widely leaked around the internet over the last few days.