Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell.com!mips!winchester!mash From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Opinions on Hyperstone ? Keywords: Hyperstone, 32-bit-processor Message-ID: <45252@mips.mips.COM> Date: 25 Jan 91 22:57:43 GMT References: <7481@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de> Sender: news@mips.COM Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. Lines: 60 In article <7481@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de> kirchner@informatik.uni-kl.de (Reinhard Kirchner) writes: > >Hello World, > >there is a 32-bit processor called Hyperstone, which was developed by a small >company here in Germany, and will, as far as I know, be manufactured by >Zilog. > >We had recently a discussion here on it, and now I want to ask You all: > >Is it known at all ? > >What to people, especially our gurus, think about its architecture and other >technical features ? ( If it is known, of course ) ? > >I can't type in the user's manual here, so I have to ask those who already >have at least heard about it. This is an important information by itself. > >It is clear that Hyperstone will neither replace i80x86 ( -:( ) nor x8000 nor >Sparc nor Mips etc., so I do not even ask for its chances in the market. I don't think it's very well-known in the U.S. I've read a short description by Otto Muller from RISC'90 in Karlsruhe, which is about hte only public thing that I've seen lately. Like 68K, Clipper, etc, it has 16, 32, and 48 bit- instructions. It has a 2-stage (at least I think that's what "Zweistifige Pipeline" means, and is claimed to be 25 MIPS with standrd DRAMs and 40 MIPS with SRAMs, although I'm not sure what the idea of MIPS is; soem numbers were given for very small benchmarks of the Dhrystone/ Whetstone variety. The current impleentation is clearly geared for embedded control, as it has a small cache, DRAM-controller with RAS/CAS-Mux, referesh-logic, parity-logic, and a bunch of other things for minimal chip count. Has 85K transistors, 144-pin PGA, with Qaud-FLat Pack in development. C compiler & debugger, running on PC, available end of January. --------- In general, it sort of looked OK to me, but as Hr. Kirchner says, not likely to replace the others. In general, it will have to compete with: 68xxx 683xx (embedded variants) Intel i960s, and maybe cheaper X86s. MIPS, especially the IDT 3051/3052, and LSI embedded variants embedded SPARC variants (maybe) AMD 29K, especially lower-end ones I couldn't really see if it had any compelling advantage versus these things, so maybe somebody could post some, as my information is fairly minimal, as the info I have is fairly short. There are of course more niches in the embedded world than in the general systems world. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: UUCP: mash@mips.com OR {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash DDD: 408-524-7015, 524-8253 or (main number) 408-720-1700 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086