Chapter 132: The Second Structure
Since the mid-eighties, when the RIsc architecture matured and entered the historical stage, the debate between the complex instruction set (cIsc) and the reduced instruction set (RIsc) of processors has been fierce.
From an objective point of view, in fact, both have their advantages and disadvantages. However, throughout the decade, the academic community overwhelmingly believed that cIssc was outdated, and RIsc was the direction of advanced technology. The two most important leaders are Paterson from Berkeley and Hennessy from Stanford.
At that time, almost all universities in the United States used textbooks co-edited by these two major students, "Computer Principles" and "Computer System Architecture", which were compulsory courses for computer students. For a long time, a large amount of content in the book was based on Hennessy's own mIps architecture as an example, and the RIsc architecture was analyzed and elaborated in detail, while the cIsc architecture was rarely mentioned.
If the 8o86 processor comes out a few years late, I believe that Intel will never risk the world's condemnation and embark on the road of no return to cIsc. But it's a pity that when Intel was working on 8o86, the RIsc architecture had not yet appeared. In order to be compatible with 8o86, Intel's later 286 and 386 can only continue to use the cIsc instruction set, and they will go further and further on the road of fighting the world.
Of course, the Intel in Li Xuan's memory of the previous life was incomparably brilliant, even if it fought against the world on its own, Intel still won a war that no one was optimistic about by taking advantage of IBm's PCs and the subsequent large-scale PC compatible machines. It not only formed a monopoly in the desktop-level CPU market, but also counterattacked the server-level CPU market, grabbing a large share from various RIsc processors.
But in this life, because of the emergence of Li Xuan's butterfly, there is a question mark over whether Intel can still succeed. Li Xuan could guess that the proposal to enter the personal computer market must have been placed in front of the top management of IBm's board of directors at this time, and he had already prepared a well-prepared feast for this blue giant.
The main dish of this feast is the eRm architecture processor that Dongfang Shi Yàn Room is working on with all its might. The reason why Li Xuan's work and rest were regular some time ago, in addition to avoiding the harassment of the media, was actually more important because the research of eRm had entered the most critical moment, so he put aside all other complicated things, and also devoted himself to joining the research of eRm, only going back and forth between home and studio every day.
Finally, a few days ago, the final good news came from the real yàn room, the research of eRm has achieved initial success, and the design has been completed, and it will be sent to the United States for tape-out. The processor enters the tape-out stage, which means that the design is basically finalized, and the next step is to test the sample CPU produced by the tape-out, look for errors and defects, and then make improvements.
It can be said that Li Xuan's eRm processor, which he used to prepare for the fight with IBm's PC, has made a breakthrough. Because according to the normal situation, it generally only takes half a year from the successful tape-out to the official launch of the CPU.
In fact, Dongfang Electronics does not need to wait for the official launch of the CPU, as long as it is confirmed that the tape-out sample has no heavy Dà defects, Aikang Computer and Dongfang Software and other branches will immediately carry out the supporting hardware and software research work of the next generation of personal computers according to the relevant technical data of the eRm architecture.
By the time the eRm processor is officially put into production, the research and development of other hardware and software will be almost underway. Dongfang Electronics Co., Ltd. can preemptively deploy its own new generation of personal computers before the PC goes on the market, and catch IBM by surprise.
But Li Xuan's mind is very clear-headed, although the eRm processor is a RIsc architecture processor that represents the direction of advanced technology, its early performance is actually very mediocre. Even to say that it is mediocre is already a bit elevated. According to many industry insiders in later generations, until denetgaRm, aRm was more like a microcontroller than a microprocessor.
The reason why Li Xuan decided to plagiarize the aRm architecture, which is not outstanding, and then "original" an eRm architecture, is actually the effect of time difference. Use the method of Tian Ji racing middle and upper class horses to deal with other people's middle horses, and use 32-bit eRm1 to suppress Intel's 16-bit 8o86 and 8o286.
When Intel's 32-bit 8O386 processor was launched, Dongfang Electronics had already relied on the advantages of operating system and application software to set up many barriers in the personal computer market. At that time, the 8o386 processor had no chance of competing on a level playing field with the eRm processor, because there were no vendors on the market who were willing to make their products compatible with Intel's new processors.
Li Xuan may be able to rely on the shady tricks of IBm and Intel, but in the workstation field, another microcomputer market that is about to rise, eRm is unlikely to be too competitive in the short term. If a personal computer is a microcomputer with normal performance, then a workstation is a more professional and high-performance microcomputer, and it also has a name called a server.
Early workstations were powered by Motorola's 32-bit mc68ooo processors, and the eRm had no advantage over it. The main reason why MC68OOOO failed to replace 8O86 as the mainstream CPU in the personal PC field is because it is too expensive.
In this regard, eRm has the advantage of a simple RIsc architecture design, which has just been prepared to be taped out, only integrates 30,000 transistors, while Motorola's mc68ooo integrates 70,000 transistors. Under the same manufacturing process, the volume of eRm chips will undoubtedly be much smaller, which means that a wafer can be divided into many more chips, and the manufacturing cost will naturally be cheaper.
However, the high-end workstation market is far less price sensitive than PCs, and customers are concerned about the performance of their computers first. This is also the main reason why MC68OOO was able to occupy the workstation market in the early 80s.
Since Li Xuan can't use the existing eRm architecture to seize the workstation computer market that is about to enter the rapid growth period, he must make other layouts, and finding a new processor architecture is undoubtedly the best solution to solve the problem.
At present, the University of Berkeley and Stanford University in the United States each have a research group on RIsc architecture, led by two future experts, Professor Paterson and Professor Hennessy. When Li Xuan was in the United States, he specially asked Dongfang Electronics Company to communicate with the two universities separately, and Professor Hennessy's mIps research group was more interested in Li Xuan's business development plan.
Li Xuan also considered that he was more familiar with the mIps architecture, after all, it was the mainstream architecture in the embedded field second only to aRm in later generations, and Li Xuan could also play the role of his golden finger, so he finally decided to cooperate with Professor Hennessy of Stanford University to jointly develop a commercial processor with mIps architecture.
In fact, the architecture that Professor Paterson of Berkeley is working on is also very good, and the spaRc architecture of the later sun company (Shengyang) is developed on this basis. Of course, for Chinese, the mIps architecture is more familiar, and later China's Loongson adopted the relevant patent authorization of the mIps architecture.
After reading the email from Professor Hennessy just now, Li Xuan quickly replied to him with an email, giving his opinions on some of the questions he raised in the email. Li Xuan is no stranger to the mIps architecture, and relying on the rebirth of the golden finger can save the Hennessy team that is exploring many detours.
Therefore, Professor Hennessy has recently recognized Li Xuan's strength more and more, and the email exchanges between the two have begun to become more frequent. can make the future president of Stanford University impress him, although Li Xuan knows that he is relying on cheating, he is still a little proud in his heart.
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