Motorola 88000
The Motorola 88000er family ( often called short m88k or 88k ) is a series of microprocessors from Motorola.
Architecture
Like its predecessor ( 68000 family) was the series as a very clean development. Is a 32- bit RISC architecture with separate instruction and data caching ( Harvard architecture ), and separate data and address buses. A major deficiency of the processor architecture was initially using a single register bank, which was used by both the integer and the floating point unit.
History
The series began in April 1988 with the introduction of the MC88100 ( CPU with integrated FPU ) and the MC88200 (MMU and cache controller ). The idea of this separation is to simplify the design of multiprocessor systems was ( A 88200 could manage up to four 88100. ). But it also had the consequence that even for a system with only a CPU of the second chip and the connections of the modules to each other was necessary, which increase the cost of such a system. The clock frequency was up to 33 MHz.
In 1992, the MC88110 was introduced to the market, which had already built a MMU and Level -1 cache, and matching the cache controller MC88410, which could be up to 2MB Level -2 cache manage. In addition, now a separate register bank for the floating point instruction set was used, expanded and equipped with new features such as superscalar, out-of- order execution and speculative execution to increase the microarchitecture to the execution speed. The clock frequency was up to 50 MHz. The MC88110MP was more optimized for multiprocessor operation.
A further improved version named MC88120 (up to 100 MHz) and a variant for embedded systems with the name MC88300 were in development, but both were no longer in series.
In the early 1990s the 88k family has been discontinued in favor of the PowerPC.
Use
Motorola proprietary VMEbus based Single Board Computer ( MVME series), which were also available with processors from the 88k family.
In the late 1980s the development of the 88k family has been pursued by many companies, among other things by Apple and NeXT. The latter had even already created prototypes with m88k processors. Data General continued the series into their AViiON series and the Japanese company OMRON Model luna88k.
The MMU of the Motorola 88000 has been largely adopted in the first generation of PowerPC processors, but realized along with the processor on a chip.
Operating Systems
- For the 88k - based MVME systems there was a Motorola porting their Unix System V variant, System V/88.
- Data General ported in-house UNIX variant DG / UX on the AViiON systems.
- OpenBSD has support up to version 5.5 in different port status for MVME systems that luna88k and AViiON systems.
- From NetBSD 3.0 there exists an experimental implementation for MVME systems.
Emulators
GXemul can emulate a Motorola MVME187 (without network interface ).