3 ms·

I'm not too familiar with the PowerPC world, so maybe someone could help me out. I know I should just search, but I'm feeling lazy. Is this a new ISA or just t

I'm not too familiar with the PowerPC world, so maybe someone could help me out. I know I should just search, but I'm feeling lazy. Is this a new ISA or just the latest revision in their existing ISA? Also, what's the relationship with Freescale (NXP) here, who sells pretty decent "PowerPC" chips for server-ish platforms, such as the T2080. Do they license the ISA from IBM sort of like how ARM works?

creshal 10y ago
POWER and PowerPC are two somewhat related, but independent ISAs. Both are available for licensing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation This is going to be the latest refinement of the POWER ISA, replacing the current POWER8 used by IBM, and licensed by some Chinese company for not yet released products. FreeScale/NXP are licensing PowerPC.
ajdlinux 10y ago
It's a new revision of an existing ISA. POWER8 implements Power ISA 2.07, POWER8 is 3.0. The Freescale part of NXP was formed out of Motorola's semiconductor division - Motorola, in turn, was part of the original AIM Alliance with Apple and IBM back in the early 90s that developed PowerPC. So they've been making PowerPC stuff since the very beginning. I would assume they have a license of some sort from IBM. [Disclaimer: IBMer, opinions my own]
- jjtheblunt 10y ago
  typo on the second POWER8 ?
  - ajdlinux 10y ago
    Argh, yes, I meant POWER9. Thanks.
rwmj 10y ago
Note the FreeScale chips implement the embedded variant of POWER7 ("book E" IIRC). They won't run server software. In particular vector instructions are missing -- servers OSes like RHEL will crash very early in boot. And last I looked little endian support was missing or broken. Big endian is basically dead on modern server POWER although at Red Hat we still build both endians for now.

3 ms·

I'm not too familiar with the PowerPC world, so maybe someone could help me out. I know I should just search, but I'm feeling lazy. Is this a new ISA or just t

by Unklejoe 10y ago

creshal 10y ago
POWER and PowerPC are two somewhat related, but independent ISAs. Both are available for licensing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation This is going to be the latest refinement of the POWER ISA, replacing the current POWER8 used by IBM, and licensed by some Chinese company for not yet released products. FreeScale/NXP are licensing PowerPC.
ajdlinux 10y ago
It's a new revision of an existing ISA. POWER8 implements Power ISA 2.07, POWER8 is 3.0. The Freescale part of NXP was formed out of Motorola's semiconductor division - Motorola, in turn, was part of the original AIM Alliance with Apple and IBM back in the early 90s that developed PowerPC. So they've been making PowerPC stuff since the very beginning. I would assume they have a license of some sort from IBM. [Disclaimer: IBMer, opinions my own]
- jjtheblunt 10y ago
  typo on the second POWER8 ?
  - ajdlinux 10y ago
    Argh, yes, I meant POWER9. Thanks.
rwmj 10y ago
Note the FreeScale chips implement the embedded variant of POWER7 ("book E" IIRC). They won't run server software. In particular vector instructions are missing -- servers OSes like RHEL will crash very early in boot. And last I looked little endian support was missing or broken. Big endian is basically dead on modern server POWER although at Red Hat we still build both endians for now.