Re: 64-bit Architecture

[eugene <eugene@securityarchitects.com>]

http://software.external.hp.com/software/HPsoftware/IA64/arch.html
http://developer.intel.com/design/litcentr/index.htm
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/1q99/ia-64-preview-1.html

very exciting stuff


On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 09:14:28PM -0400, Al wrote:
> 
> >> Are we talking difference like 68K -> PowerPC and VAX->Alpha?
> 
> >>Yep.  Arguably even more so, since IA-64 is a VLIW architecture,
> >>IIRC.
> 
> It has been a while since some of the folks at HP and Intel explained this
> to me but what I understand makes the design fast is that the compiler
> supplies the CPU with information on the instruction stream so that better
> choices can be made when executing instructions out of order and making
> branch predictions.
> 
> If memory servers each 16 instructions are prefixed with a 8-bit context
> tag. If two groups of instructions are examined by the CPU and their tags
> are different then the CPU knows that the second group has no dependencies
> on the first and could be executed at the same time the first group is still
> being processed.