Embracing and Extending 20th-Century Instruction Set Architectures.

A case study regarding vector architecture is presented. An example is provided for improving old network architecture with a small set of extensions. Network engineers extended an 80x86 architecture and PowerPC to support a full vector architecture. Vector architectures grab sets of data elements s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Computer (00189162) Vol. 40; no. 4; pp. 68 - 76
Main Authors:	Gebis, Joe, Patterson, David
Format:	Case Study
Published:	IEEE Apr2007
Subjects:	Computer networks Computer network architectures Vector processing (Computer science) Electronic data processing Data transmission systems Computer network protocols Computer storage devices
Online Access:	View this record in EBSCOhost

Description
Summary:	A case study regarding vector architecture is presented. An example is provided for improving old network architecture with a small set of extensions. Network engineers extended an 80x86 architecture and PowerPC to support a full vector architecture. Vector architectures grab sets of data elements scattered about memory, places them into sizable, sequential register files, operates on data in those files, then disperses the results into memory upon conclusion. Vector programs strive to keep the memory system busy.