I just had this little "hah!" moment...
I keep thinking about how to make FC1 much more badass. While writing one of the latest logs of #PDP - Processor Design Principles I realised I could/should have more than one data register per address register.
For example, 4 address registers are linked to one data register, and 4 other address registers are linked to 4 data registers each. Advantages include :
- much faster and lighter call/return (it would emulate register windows sans their drawbacks)
- faster register save and backup
- better memory bandwidth
- solves loop unrolling
- fewer aliasing problems ?
- easier unaligned access in one cycle (by combining 2 pipelines for a 2R2W instruction)
- reduces the number of address registers and pointer update instructions
It looks like a weird mix between Itanium, SPARC and TMS9900... I have to ponder more about it but the overwhelming benefits are enticing.
I also have to find a proper behaviour for pointer aliases, should they trap ?
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