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OpenPOWER Foundation – Open-Source / Open Hardware PowerPC CPU ISA

peter_d_sherman 1y ago
>"By open sourcing and developing on the POWER ISA - one of the most sophisticated processor architectures available - the OpenPOWER Foundation is democratizing access and extending the reach of the RISC-based architecture.' Open for All With more than 350 members collaborating regularly, the entire semiconductor industry - from global organizations with deep expertise to individual creators with a new lens - can innovate with choice and build and develop across the full Hardware and Software stack." Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power10 https://www.itjungle.com/2024/12/02/power11-takes-memory-bandwidth-up-to-well-eleven/ https://www.itjungle.com/2024/12/02/power11-takes-memory-ban...
ThinkBeat 1y ago
According to Raptor the newest generation of POWER chips contain a big binary proprietary blob. Would these pose a problem for the this foundation?
- net01 1y ago
  link ?
- p_l 1y ago
  No - essentially a modern CPU is composed of multiple blocks, not just the actual CPU core. Some of those IP blocks will be closed source, often from third party vendors, and sometimes that means proprietary software blobs to interact with them (whether because the documentation to configure them is proprietary, or because you need to load proprietary microcode or firmware). The OpenPOWER foundation does not deal with entire CPU module / SoC component, and as such it's not really in their bailwick. The issue with POWER 10 cpus was that at least two important blocks without which the CPUs are essentially useless involved such third party components that required closed source firmware blobs to initialize. One of them was effectively the only OMI<->DDR4 (iirc) memory interface (OMI - serial link for memory, successor of POWER8/9 Centaur link), and the other was I think Synopsys' PCI-Express Root Ports
ladyanita22 1y ago
Why the focus on Risc-V when the Power architecture already has high-performance cores? Genuine questions.
- bhouston 1y ago
  Power and RISC-V are going after different markets. While Power is IRSC has a lot of legacy baggage that makes it significantly more complex that RISC-V (which is clean slate and purposely simplified.) It is also definitely not optimized for low power situations / embedded. It is basically super computer chip. Also unlike ARM and RISC-V it isn't designed to be extensible/customized by users. It is more monolithic.
  - cduzz 1y ago
    I wouldn't say "super computer" chip (or at least "supercomputer")... I've read the definition of a supercomputer as "some computer that takes specific domain, compute-bound problems and turns them into IO bound problems." (Implicitly, in that statement is the second statement of "and they have a ton of IO too). They're not really general purpose computers, and likely you'd be able to use risc-v or anything else, with specialized hardware, as the basis of a "supercomputer". The power platform, on the other-hand (I'll create a new word here) is a foundation for a "SuperEnterprise(tm)" computer. Power has insane / awesome things like "oh, you can use the ECC bits for ECC and hardware memory tagging[1]." Eventually such things may trickle down to things like ARM or RISC-V, but they're pioneered at the top of the enterprise mountain and trickle down... [1]https://www.devever.net/~hl/ppcas https://www.devever.net/~hl/ppcas
    - bhouston 1y ago
      I guess I was referring to the fact that Power ISA chips were dominant at once time (prior to the rise of x86 chips) in the TOP 500 listings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500#/media/File:Processor_families_in_TOP500_supercomputers.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500#/media/File:Processor_f... They have faded from that over time from this niche. I do not know where they excel now.
- 1y ago
jamesy0ung 1y ago
What exactly is the selling point of the Power ISA? Why would I want to use it over RISC-V?
- Symmetry 1y ago
  You can accomplish the same task in substantially fewer instructions, leading to higher performance for a given level of design effort. Also a more developed software ecosystem.
  - snvzz 1y ago
    >You can accomplish the same task in substantially fewer instructions, leading to higher performance for a given level of design effort. The statement is true and favorable to RISC-V, as it is the one with lowest instruction count and code size; RISC-V wins, and it is not even close. >Also a more developed software ecosystem. Historically true, but right now the momentum is with RISC-V, and it is absolutely is catching up, and no longer a point of contention. e.g. Debian is the largest Linux distribution by its library of packaged software. There, RISC-V has already overtaken[0] it in available package count. 0. https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png
- bhouston 1y ago
  It is aimed at a completely different market from RISC-V. RISC-V advantages is that it is an incredible simple and extensible architecture aimed at low power / embedded use cases. It is also easy to customize (similar to ARM) for specific use cases. Power ISA is a super computer chip, while RISC-like, has a lot of legacy baggage and isn't designed for low-power nor is it designed for embedded situations. It also is not designed for customizability, it is more like a monolith project. Power ISA will have space at the top of the market for very high performance CPUs. But I think it will be stuck there as there are no benefits over RISC-V in the areas where RISC-V is growing right now.
  - orbifold 1y ago
    That isn’t actually true. I‘ve personally worked on an embedded POWER processor https://github.com/electronicvisions/nux https://github.com/electronicvisions/nux. It is used as a dual core embedded micro-controller in a neuromorphic chip. Each core has just 16kB of memory on chip and 4kB instruction cache. POWER has subsets of the instruction set which have a gcc and llvm target and are well suited for embedded use cases. Main advantage of RISCV at this point is that it has a larger community. But at the time it didn’t even have a vector instruction set, whereas we could easily modify the POWER one for our purposes.
vinceleg 1y ago
[dead]
phendrenad2 1y ago
So what exactly does OpenPOWER grant me? If I create a CPU core design that implements the same ISA as, say, the PowerPC G5 chip used in Macs from 2002-2012, can I sell it? Or can I open-source it? Or is OpenPOWER incompatible with the PowerPC line?
- panick21_ 1y ago
  PowerPC and POWER are not the same. PowerPC was created because Apple allied with IBM, but they wanted Motorola as a supplier. So they basically changed Motorola own RISC chip into something POWER like. OpenPOWER used to be restricted, but because RISC-V absolutely crush the OpenPOWER fake marketing with being really open, OpenPOWER (like MIPS) after a few years have changed and are now more like RISC-V.
  - MisterTea 1y ago
    No, The AIM alliance's goal was to create a standard Power architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance PPC Mac is the same PPC that Motorola developed and marketed. The key difference lies in the platform as Power PC is just a CPU ISA, it does not define a platform which includes hardware layout and booting. So you cant just buy a Motorola chip and boot MacOS because MacOS expects a Power Macintosh complete with Power Macintosh hardware and firmware. Arm and Risc-V also do not define a platform. IBM is the one who developed a standard hardware and firmware design, the BIOS, for the Intel 8086 and thus the PC was born. The PC platform is why we think of computers as general purpose machine that boot any OS. Outside of that ecosystem it's a big mess. Arm and Risc-v do not define platforms which is not a good situation.
    - Y_Y 1y ago
      Arm does indeed define a platform, it's called SBSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architectur...
      - 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
snvzz 1y ago
The community behind POWER has long been overtaken by RISC-V. This can easily be seen reflected in Debian (largest distribution by package collection), where RISC-V has recently overtaken[0] ppc64 as the third largest ISA in available software. The expectation is that RISC-V will continue to climb and eventually overtake ARM and x86. RISC-V is inevitable. 0. https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png

>"By open sourcing and developing on the POWER ISA - one of the most sophisticated processor architectures available - the OpenPOWER Foundation is democratizing access and extending the reach of the RISC-based architecture.' Open for All With more than 350 members collaborating regularly, the entire semiconductor industry - from global organizations with deep expertise to individual creators with a new lens - can innovate with choice and build and develop across the full Hardware and Software stack." Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power10 https://www.itjungle.com/2024/12/02/power11-takes-memory-bandwidth-up-to-well-eleven/ https://www.itjungle.com/2024/12/02/power11-takes-memory-ban...

ThinkBeat 1y ago

According to Raptor the newest generation of POWER chips contain a big binary proprietary blob. Would these pose a problem for the this foundation?

net01 1y ago
link ?
p_l 1y ago
No - essentially a modern CPU is composed of multiple blocks, not just the actual CPU core. Some of those IP blocks will be closed source, often from third party vendors, and sometimes that means proprietary software blobs to interact with them (whether because the documentation to configure them is proprietary, or because you need to load proprietary microcode or firmware). The OpenPOWER foundation does not deal with entire CPU module / SoC component, and as such it's not really in their bailwick. The issue with POWER 10 cpus was that at least two important blocks without which the CPUs are essentially useless involved such third party components that required closed source firmware blobs to initialize. One of them was effectively the only OMI<->DDR4 (iirc) memory interface (OMI - serial link for memory, successor of POWER8/9 Centaur link), and the other was I think Synopsys' PCI-Express Root Ports

ladyanita22 1y ago

Why the focus on Risc-V when the Power architecture already has high-performance cores? Genuine questions.

bhouston 1y ago
Power and RISC-V are going after different markets. While Power is IRSC has a lot of legacy baggage that makes it significantly more complex that RISC-V (which is clean slate and purposely simplified.) It is also definitely not optimized for low power situations / embedded. It is basically super computer chip. Also unlike ARM and RISC-V it isn't designed to be extensible/customized by users. It is more monolithic.
- cduzz 1y ago
  I wouldn't say "super computer" chip (or at least "supercomputer")... I've read the definition of a supercomputer as "some computer that takes specific domain, compute-bound problems and turns them into IO bound problems." (Implicitly, in that statement is the second statement of "and they have a ton of IO too). They're not really general purpose computers, and likely you'd be able to use risc-v or anything else, with specialized hardware, as the basis of a "supercomputer". The power platform, on the other-hand (I'll create a new word here) is a foundation for a "SuperEnterprise(tm)" computer. Power has insane / awesome things like "oh, you can use the ECC bits for ECC and hardware memory tagging[1]." Eventually such things may trickle down to things like ARM or RISC-V, but they're pioneered at the top of the enterprise mountain and trickle down... [1]https://www.devever.net/~hl/ppcas https://www.devever.net/~hl/ppcas
  - bhouston 1y ago
    I guess I was referring to the fact that Power ISA chips were dominant at once time (prior to the rise of x86 chips) in the TOP 500 listings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500#/media/File:Processor_families_in_TOP500_supercomputers.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500#/media/File:Processor_f... They have faded from that over time from this niche. I do not know where they excel now.
1y ago

jamesy0ung 1y ago

What exactly is the selling point of the Power ISA? Why would I want to use it over RISC-V?

Symmetry 1y ago
You can accomplish the same task in substantially fewer instructions, leading to higher performance for a given level of design effort. Also a more developed software ecosystem.
- snvzz 1y ago
  >You can accomplish the same task in substantially fewer instructions, leading to higher performance for a given level of design effort. The statement is true and favorable to RISC-V, as it is the one with lowest instruction count and code size; RISC-V wins, and it is not even close. >Also a more developed software ecosystem. Historically true, but right now the momentum is with RISC-V, and it is absolutely is catching up, and no longer a point of contention. e.g. Debian is the largest Linux distribution by its library of packaged software. There, RISC-V has already overtaken[0] it in available package count. 0. https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png
bhouston 1y ago
It is aimed at a completely different market from RISC-V. RISC-V advantages is that it is an incredible simple and extensible architecture aimed at low power / embedded use cases. It is also easy to customize (similar to ARM) for specific use cases. Power ISA is a super computer chip, while RISC-like, has a lot of legacy baggage and isn't designed for low-power nor is it designed for embedded situations. It also is not designed for customizability, it is more like a monolith project. Power ISA will have space at the top of the market for very high performance CPUs. But I think it will be stuck there as there are no benefits over RISC-V in the areas where RISC-V is growing right now.
- orbifold 1y ago
  That isn’t actually true. I‘ve personally worked on an embedded POWER processor https://github.com/electronicvisions/nux https://github.com/electronicvisions/nux. It is used as a dual core embedded micro-controller in a neuromorphic chip. Each core has just 16kB of memory on chip and 4kB instruction cache. POWER has subsets of the instruction set which have a gcc and llvm target and are well suited for embedded use cases. Main advantage of RISCV at this point is that it has a larger community. But at the time it didn’t even have a vector instruction set, whereas we could easily modify the POWER one for our purposes.

vinceleg 1y ago

[dead]

phendrenad2 1y ago

So what exactly does OpenPOWER grant me? If I create a CPU core design that implements the same ISA as, say, the PowerPC G5 chip used in Macs from 2002-2012, can I sell it? Or can I open-source it? Or is OpenPOWER incompatible with the PowerPC line?

panick21_ 1y ago
PowerPC and POWER are not the same. PowerPC was created because Apple allied with IBM, but they wanted Motorola as a supplier. So they basically changed Motorola own RISC chip into something POWER like. OpenPOWER used to be restricted, but because RISC-V absolutely crush the OpenPOWER fake marketing with being really open, OpenPOWER (like MIPS) after a few years have changed and are now more like RISC-V.
- MisterTea 1y ago
  No, The AIM alliance's goal was to create a standard Power architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance PPC Mac is the same PPC that Motorola developed and marketed. The key difference lies in the platform as Power PC is just a CPU ISA, it does not define a platform which includes hardware layout and booting. So you cant just buy a Motorola chip and boot MacOS because MacOS expects a Power Macintosh complete with Power Macintosh hardware and firmware. Arm and Risc-V also do not define a platform. IBM is the one who developed a standard hardware and firmware design, the BIOS, for the Intel 8086 and thus the PC was born. The PC platform is why we think of computers as general purpose machine that boot any OS. Outside of that ecosystem it's a big mess. Arm and Risc-v do not define platforms which is not a good situation.
  - Y_Y 1y ago
    Arm does indeed define a platform, it's called SBSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architectur...
    - 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

snvzz 1y ago

The community behind POWER has long been overtaken by RISC-V. This can easily be seen reflected in Debian (largest distribution by package collection), where RISC-V has recently overtaken[0] ppc64 as the third largest ISA in available software. The expectation is that RISC-V will continue to climb and eventually overtake ARM and x86. RISC-V is inevitable. 0. https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png https://buildd.debian.org/stats/graph-week-big.png