731:
functionality. The 18th core is used as a spare in case one of the other cores are permanently damaged (for instance in manufacturing) but is shut down in functional operation. The Blue Gene/Q chip is manufactured on IBM's copper SOI process at 45 nm, will deliver a peak performance of 204.8
533:
It includes a memory management unit but no floating point unit (FPU). Such facilities are handled by the AXU, which has support for any number of standardized or customized macros, such as floating point units, vector units, DSPs, media accelerators and other units with instruction sets and
554:
Book III-E. It is optimized for single core performance and designed to reach 3 GHz at 45 nm process technology. The A2O differs from its sibling in that it is only two-way multithreaded, 32+32 kB data and instruction L1 caches, and is capable of
534:
registers not part of the Power ISA. The core has a system interface unit used to connect to other on die cores, with a 256-bit interface for data writes and a 128-bit interface for instruction and data reads at full core speed.
518:
The core has 4×32 64-bit general purpose registers (GPR) with full support for both little and big endian byte ordering, 16 KB+16 KB instruction and data cache and is capable of four-way multithreading.
852:
728:
526:(BPU) with eight 1024-entry branch history tables. The L1 caches is a 16 KB 8-way set-associative data cache and a 4-way set-associative 16 KB instruction cache. It executes a simple
421:
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system without any additional support chips. The chips are said to be extremely complex according to
Charlie Johnson, chief architect at IBM, and use 1.43 billion transistors on a
953:
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pipeline capable of issuing two instructions per cycle; one to the 6-stage arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and one to the optional auxiliary execution unit (AXU).
904:
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is a 4-way simultaneous multithreaded core which implements the 64-bit Power ISA v.2.06 Book III-E embedded platform specification with support for the
878:
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features. It was designed for implementations with many cores and focusing on high throughput and many simultaneous threads. A2I was written in
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or 3.1 which is mandatory for OpenPOWER cores. It is IBM's wish for the cores to be updated so they comply with the newer version of the ISA.
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The A2 core is a processor core designed for customization and embedded use in system on chip-devices, and was developed following IBM's
736:
at 1.6 GHz and draws about 55 watts. The chip has a die size of 19×19 mm (359.5 mm) and uses 1.47 billion transistors.
682:
processor is an 18 core chip using the A2I core running at 1.6 GHz with special features for fast thread context switching, quad
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582:'s offerings of free and open processor cores. As A2 was designed in 2010, A2I and A2O are not compliant with the
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and a typical server processor, that is manipulating and packaging data. It was revealed on
February 8, 2010, at
108:
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It uses 16 cores for computing, and one core for operating system services. This 17th core will take care of
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853:"A2I POWER Processor Core Contributed to OpenPOWER Community to Advance Open Hardware Collaboration"
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954:
A Wire-Speed Power
Processor: 2.3GHz 45nm SOI with 16 Cores and 64 Threads – Presentation, IBM
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A Wire-Speed Power
Processor: 2.3GHz 45nm SOI with 16 Cores and 64 Threads – White paper, IBM
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as well a multitude of task-specific engines besides the general-purpose processors, such as
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879:"OpenPOWER Foundation Unveils IBM Hardware/Software Contributions at OpenPOWER Summit"
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689:, 5D torus chip-to-chip network and 2 GB/s external I/O. The cores are linked by a
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to a less powerful, four core version, consuming 20 W at 1.4 GHz.
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specification. Versions of processors based on the A2 core range from a 2.3
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30:
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memory controllers running at 1.33 GHz, supporting up to 16 GB RAM.
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In the second half of 2020 IBM released the A2I and A2O cores under a
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When A2O was released, no actual products have used it.
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ISSCC: IBM back in network processor game - EE Times
607:processor", is designed as hybrid between regular
626:Each chip uses the A2I core and has 8 MB of
700:. The L2 cache is multi-versioned and supports
646:accelerators each with MMUs of their own, four
825:IBM open sources the A2O Core - Bill Flyn, IBM
546:is a slightly more modern version, written in
931:"IBM's BlueGene/Q Super Chip Grows 18th Core"
574:, and published the VHDL and Verilog code on
415:
8:
772:
770:
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18:
892:IBM gives birth to 'wire-speed' processor
905:"US commissions beefy IBM supercomputer"
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578:. The intention was to add them to the
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100:
37:
21:
929:Timothy Prickett Morgan (2011-08-26).
855:. OpenPOWER Foundation. Archived from
654:. Up to four chips can be linked in a
38:NXP (formerly Freescale and Motorola)
7:
851:OpenPOWER Foundation (2020-06-30).
693:at half core speed to a 32 MB
907:. IDG News Service. Archived from
14:
603:(Power Edge of Network), or the "
949:A2 Processor User’s Manual - IBM
468:version with 16 cores consuming
792:A2I Explored - Bill Flynn, IBM
1:
708:. A Blue Gene/Q chip has two
903:Joab Jackson (2011-02-08).
456:processor core designed by
1010:
746:IBM Power microprocessors
16:Power ISA-based processor
877:InsideHPC (2020-09-15).
572:Creative Commons license
45:PowerPC e series (2006)
814:A2O verilog source code
484:processor designs, the
524:branch prediction unit
178:PowerPC series (1992)
984:Power microprocessors
706:speculative execution
609:networking processors
994:Open microprocessors
989:Transactional memory
803:A2I VHDL source code
751:OpenPOWER Foundation
702:transactional memory
662:size of 428 mm
580:OpenPOWER Foundation
522:It has a fine grain
345:OpenPOWER Foundation
979:IBM microprocessors
687:floating point unit
648:10 Gigabit Ethernet
509:embedded hypervisor
836:IBM (2020-09-15).
777:IBM (2020-06-27).
644:regular expression
486:Xbox 360-processor
398:historic in italic
226:RAD series (1997)
82:Qor series (2008)
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394:Cancelled in gray
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721:asynchronous I/O
552:Power ISA v.2.07
462:Power ISA v.2.06
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933:. insideHPC.com
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838:"a2o on GitHub"
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779:"a2i on GitHub"
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691:crossbar switch
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584:Power ISA 3.0
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337:Related links
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33:architectures
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935:. Retrieved
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913:. Retrieved
909:the original
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881:. InsideHPC.
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861:. Retrieved
857:the original
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831:
820:
809:
798:
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725:flow control
714:
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636:cryptography
625:
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557:out-of-order
550:, using the
543:
541:
532:
521:
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504:
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482:game console
479:
446:capable and
435:
433:
397:
350:AIM alliance
326:
286:
279:
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265:IBM/Nintendo
252:
229:
212:
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198:
181:
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135:
128:
121:
114:
680:Blue Gene/Q
674:Blue Gene/Q
640:compression
559:execution.
440:open source
973:Categories
937:2013-11-18
915:2011-02-08
863:2020-06-30
762:References
717:interrupts
664:fabricated
652:PCIe lanes
621:ISSCC 2010
605:wire-speed
566:OpenSource
488: and
460:using the
442:massively
312:PWRficient
670:process.
613:switching
470:65 W
454:Power ISA
444:multicore
365:Power.org
360:Blue Gene
31:Power ISA
740:See also
698:L2 cache
666:using a
611:, doing
590:Products
528:in-order
492:for the
288:Espresso
281:Broadway
617:routing
601:PowerEN
595:PowerEN
548:Verilog
385:AltiVec
242:RAD5500
231:RAD6000
215:(2010)
170:Power10
91:Qorivva
27:PowerPC
840:. IBM.
781:. IBM.
756:POWER7
734:GFLOPS
727:, and
723:, MPI
576:GitHub
476:Design
451:64-bit
438:is an
436:IBM A2
258:(1996)
256:series
237:RAD750
165:POWER9
160:POWER8
155:POWER7
150:POWER6
144:POWER5
137:POWER4
130:POWER3
123:POWER2
116:POWER1
29:, and
695:eDRAM
668:45 nm
628:cache
322:Xenon
306:Titan
297:Other
274:Gekko
109:Power
86:QorIQ
74:e6500
69:e5500
23:POWER
710:DDR3
704:and
684:SIMD
678:The
642:and
615:and
599:The
542:The
513:VHDL
434:The
380:CHRP
375:PReP
370:PAPR
355:RISC
328:X704
317:Cell
254:RS64
200:74xx
64:e600
59:e500
54:e300
49:e200
729:RAS
660:die
656:SMP
632:XML
544:A2O
538:A2O
505:A2I
500:A2I
466:GHz
458:IBM
221:A2O
218:A2I
207:970
194:7xx
189:4xx
183:6xx
101:IBM
975::
769:^
719:,
638:,
634:,
623:.
515:.
496:.
396:,
213:A2
25:,
940:.
918:.
866:.
423:e
416:t
409:v
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