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Design of a user-microprogrammable building block

Published:30 November 1980Publication History
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Abstract

A user-microprogrammable computer has been developed for use as a building block in general-purpose and dedicated computer systems. The architecture is designed to be easily microprogrammed and features a 32-bit, vertically oriented microinstruction. The processor has a 135-nanosecond cycle time, either 16- or 20-bit macro data paths, and 1024 hardware registers. A significant fraction of the processor bandwidth may be budgeted for I/O processing to allow the substitution of microcode for expensive peripheral controllers. Furthermore, the micromachine is well suited to the emulation of other computer architectures in that it provides a large writable microcode memory and a minimum of special processor data paths. The design goals and strategies which determined the machine architecture are discussed, as well as an overview of the architecture and hardware organization. Finally, we report a number of specific applications developed to date.

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            cover image ACM SIGMICRO Newsletter
            ACM SIGMICRO Newsletter  Volume 11, Issue 3-4
            Dec. 1980
            177 pages
            ISSN:1050-916X
            DOI:10.1145/1014190
            Issue’s Table of Contents

            Copyright © 1980 Authors

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            Association for Computing Machinery

            New York, NY, United States

            Publication History

            • Published: 30 November 1980

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