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Implementing a Large Data Bus VLIW Microprocessor

2008; Science Publications; Volume: 5; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3844/ajassp.2008.1528.1534

1554-3641

Weng Fook Lee, Ali Yeon Md Shakaff,

Embedded Systems Design Techniques

Microprocessors have grown tremendously in its computing and data crunching capability since the early days of the invention of a microprocessor.Today, most microprocessors in the market are at 32 bits, while the latest microprocessors from IBM, Intel and AMD are at 64 bits.To further grow the computational capability of a microprocessor, there are two possible paths.One method is to increase the data bus size of the microprocessor to 128/256/512 bits.The larger the data bus size, the more data can be crunched at any one time.The second method is to implement multiple microprocessor core in a single microprocessor unit.For example, Intel's Pentium 4 Dual Core and AMD's Athlon Dual Core both have two microprocessor core within a single microprocessor unit.Latest from Intel and AMD are quad core microprocessors with four microprocessor core within a single microprocessor unit.Both methods have its advantages and disadvantages.Both methods yields different design issues and have different engineering limitations.This research looks into the possibility of implementing a large data bus size VLIW microprocessor core of 256 bits on the data bus.VLIW is chosen as opposed to CISC and RISC due to its ease of scalability.