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Internal Instructions

For high-speed vector operations, a full implementation of the architecture is endowed with a set of 64 integer ALUs and a set of 64 floating-point ALUs. To permit them to be used for superscalar processing as well, each ALU is provided with an L1 cache. To build on these elements with as little additional circuitry as possible to create 64 processors capable of operating independently, giving each processor its own register file in addition to the L1 cache was avoided, permitting a very simple and regular instruction format, which is shown below:

The first 128 of the eight-bit opcodes defined for use by the sixty-four small processors which handle this simple two-address memory-to-memory instruction set are as follows:

00000 00001 00010 00011 00100 00101 00110 00111
 MVB   IB    MVH   IH    MV    I     MVL         000
 CB    UCB   CH    UCH   C     UC    CL    UCL   001
 LIB   ULB   LIH   ULH   LI    UL    LIL         010
 STIB  XB    STIH  XH    STI   X     STIL  XL    011
 AB    NB    AH    NH    A     N     AL    NL    100
 SB    OB    SH    OH    S     O     SL    OL    101
 MB    MEB   MH    MEH   M     ME    ML    MEL   110
 DB    DEB   DH    DEH   D     DE    DL    DEL   111

01000 01001 01010 01011 01100 01101 01110 01111
      LSBU   MVF   MEU   MVD   MEUD  MVQ   MEUQ  000
             CF    DEU   CD    DEUD  CQ    DEUQ  001
      LSBSM  LIF         LID         LIQ         010
 CCN         STIF        STID        STIQ        011
      LDBU   AF    AU    AD    AUD   AQ    AUQ   100
             SF    SU    SD    SUD   SQ    SUQ   101
      LDBSM  MF    MU    MD    MUQ   MQ    MUQ   110
 CCT         DF    DU    DD    DUD   DQ    DUQ   111

As there are no registers, the swap instructions have been removed; as there are therefore no index registers, a Load Indirect instruction and a Store Indirect instruction have been added. These instructions take a halfword value as a source argument, which then points to the value used as the source argument of the load or store. Also, as the instructions are memory-to-memory instructions, the regular load and store instructions are replaced by a Move instruction.

The CCN and CCT instructions, although their opcodes are in the same region as those used for standard memory-reference operations, belong to a different group that will be described later.

The quadruple-precision floating-point instructions shown here may not necessarily be provided. While it is useful to have 128-bit floating-point arithmetic available, this is a luxury feature, not a basic one, that would likely see only limited use even in the applications that do require it. Thus, 128-bit floating-point may be provided in the main ALU, and in the ALU for short vector operations, but not in the bank of sixty-four ALUs used to accelerate long vector operations.

Note, however, that this does not mean that long vector quad-precision floating point instructions would also be omitted. The original Cray computers with operations similar to the long vector instructions, although they had groups of 64 registers, did not have groups of 64 ALUs, they instead relied on a single pipelined ALU. Of course, this would mean that long vector operations on quadruple precision values would no longer be comparable in speed to long vector operations on double precision values.

Other Instructions

The conditional jump instructions are:

C1000xxx            JL      Jump if Low
C2000xxx            JE      Jump if Equal
C3000xxx            JLE     Jump if Low or Equal
C4000xxx            JH      Jump if High
C5000xxx            JNE     Jump if Not Equal
C6000xxx            JHE     Jump if High or Equal
C7000xxx            JNV     Jump if No Overflow
C8000xxx            JV      Jump if Overflow

CA000xxx            JC      Jump if Carry
CB000xxx            JNC     Jump if No Carry

CF000xxx            JMP     Jump

here noted in hexadecimal form rather than octal form, due to the arrangement of the internal instructions.

As well, a subroutine jump instruction, and a jump indirect instruction, useful for returning from a subroutine, are provided:

C0rrrxxx            JSB     Jump to Subroutine

CE000xxx            JI      Jump Indirect

The Jump to Subroutine instruction transfers control to the location which is its source operand, and stores the return address in the halfword which is its destination operand. The Jump Indirect instruction finds the address to which to transfer control in the halfword that is its source operand.

The shift instructions are:

E00nnxxx            SHLB    Shift Left Byte
E10nnxxx            SHRB    Shift Right Byte

E30nnxxx            ASRB    Arithmetic Shift Right Byte
E40nnxxx            ROLB    Rotate Left Byte
E50nnxxx            RORB    Rotate Right Byte
E60nnxxx            RLCB    Rotate Left through Carry Byte
E70nnxxx            RRCB    Rotate Right through Carry Byte

E80nnxxx            SHLH    Shift Left Halfword
E90nnxxx            SHRH    Shift Right Halfword

EB0nnxxx            ASRH    Arithmetic Shift Right Halfword
EC0nnxxx            ROLH    Rotate Left Halfword
ED0nnxxx            RORH    Rotate Right Halfword
EE0nnxxx            RLCH    Rotate Left through Carry Halfword
EF0nnxxx            RRCH    Rotate Right through Carry Halfword
F00nnxxx            SHL     Shift Left
F10nnxxx            SHR     Shift Right

F30nnxxx            ASR     Arithmetic Shift Right
F40nnxxx            ROL     Rotate Left
F50nnxxx            ROR     Rotate Right
F60nnxxx            RLC     Rotate Left through Carry
F70nnxxx            RRC     Rotate Right through Carry
F80nnxxx            SHLL    Shift Left Long
F90nnxxx            SHRL    Shift Right Long

FB0nnxxx            ASRL    Arithmetic Shift Right Long
FC0nnxxx            ROLL    Rotate Left Long
FD0nnxxx            RORL    Rotate Right Long
FE0nnxxx            RLCL    Rotate Left through Carry Long
FF0nnxxx            RRCL    Rotate Right through Carry Long

The shift count is placed in the source address field, the memory location whose contents are to be shifted is identified in the destination address field.

Interprocessor Communications

A family of functions relevant to parallel computation, is added, the Transmit/Receive functions. These functions use a family of sixteen buses, each 128 bits in width, that interconnect the sixty-four long vector arithmetic-logic units. (Although each ALU is connected to sixteen buses, the total number of buses involved is actually 128, as each bus only interconnects eight of the sixty-four processors.)

The instructions are:

D0xxxb00   RCB    Receive Byte
D1xxxb00   TXB    Transmit Byte
D2xxxb00   RCH    Receive Halfword
D3xxxb00   TXH    Transmit Halfword
D4xxxb00   RC     Receive
D5xxxb00   TX     Transmit
D6xxxb00   RCL    Receive Long
D7xxxb00   TXL    Transmit Long


DAxxxb00   RCF    Receive Floating
DBxxxb00   TXF    Transmit Floating
DCxxxb00   RCD    Receive Double
DDxxxb00   TXD    Transmit Double
DExxxb00   RCQ    Receive Quad
DFxxxb00   TXQ    Transmit Quad

The transmit instructions take the value from the destination location, and place it on the processor's own bus line, either in the long-range bus, if the first bit of the source address field is a 1, or the short-range bus, if the first bit of the source address field is zero. This value remains available to other processors until another transmit instruction to the appropriate bus is issued, or until the processor exits from the current cache-internal parallel computation.

The receive instructions take a value from the bus whose number is given in the last three bits of the instruction, either among the long-range buses, if the first bit of the source address field is a 1, or among the short-range buses, if the first bit of the source address field is a zero. If no value is being transmitted, the value in the target register is unchanged, and the instruction sets the zero condition code; otherwise, it clears this code, so a conditional branch can be used to determine if a value has been received.

The sixty-four processors, numbered from 0 to 63, if their octal number is mn, communicate with processors whose number is of the form xn along the long-range buses, and of the form mx along the short-range buses, and in both cases, x is the three bit number of the bus specified in the instruction. Thus, processor mn transmits data to processors with numbers of the form xn along the long-range bus m to which they are connected, and to processors of the form mx along the long-range bus n to which they are connected.

The following diagram may make this arrangement easier to understand:

Note that each of the buses shown in the diagram is intended to appear to the programmer as a 128-bit-wide data bus. This may be impractical, and instead the buses may be only a single bit wide, with data transmitted serially along them. Because such an operation as a floating-point divide requires the equivalent of a large number of gate delays to be accomplished, it is possible this can be done without too severe a performance penalty.

This type of bus is required to permit rapid handling of long vector operands which are not necessarily in the same alignment in memory, by allowing an arbitrary shift along the array of processors in at most two steps, and thus making it available for cache-internal parallel computation as well increases its power.

The way in which this type of bus is used for the purpose of facilitating long vector operations is illustrated as follows:

An array of numbers beginning at an arbitrary point, shown by the red and blue rectangles in the top row, is brought to alignment with the beginning of the processor array first by having its elements moved by a multiple of eight units, to form the middle row. Note that the elements marked in blue are moved an extra eight units forwards. Then, the vector is brought to complete alignment through a rotation that takes place within each group of eight units, changing from the arrangement in the middle row to the fully aligned positioning in the bottom row.

Of course, that purpose can be achieved through somewhat simpler circuitry that would not be suitable for the type of interprocessor communications envisaged; for example, a circuit that routed words in a manner similar to that in which a barrel shifter routes bits, first between groups of eight words, and then within each group of eight words.

Indexing

The instruction format does not provide space for specifying the use of index registers. The following four instructions provide an alternative means of addressing array elements without resorting to self-modifying code:

48000xxx      LSBU   Load Source B Unmodifiable
4A000xxx      LSBSM  Load Source B Source Modifiable
4C000xxx      LDBU   Load Destination B Unmodifiable
4E000xxx      LDBSM  Load Destination B Source Modifiable

These instructions load the source and destination B registers from their least significant 12 bits of their 16-bit source arguments. For any other instructions, if either or both of the source B and destination B registers are set, their contents are added to the source and destination fields of those instructions before execution, and then they are cleared.

In the case of the LSBU and LDBU instructions, when they execute, if either or both of the B registers are set, they are ignored; in the case of the LSBSM and LDBSM instructions, the source B register modifies the instruction normally, but the destination B register is ignored.

This allows instructions to be set up that have both source and destination arguments indexed with values which are themselves chosen by means of an index, For example,

A(IX(IXX)) = A(IX(IXX)) + B(IY(IYY))

can be expressed as:

      LSBU    IXX
      LDBSM   IX
      LSBU    IYY
      LSBSM   IY
      AF      A,B

which sets up the destination B register first, as the source B register can be loaded from an indexed location without disturbing the destination B register.

Note that the B register contents do not affect the opcode of an instruction. This feature, although significantly different in detail, can be traced back in its inspiration to the Elliott 803 computer and its predecessors, such as the Ferranti Mark I, from which the British term "B-line" for an index register originated.

With the exception of constructs for two-level indexing such as depicted in the example above, the use of these instructions can be made more understandable for programmers used to conventional index registers by thinking of these instructions as instruction prefixes used to indicate indexing.

Execution Management

As well, two other instructions need to be defined in addition:

43000000      CCN    Conclude and Notify
47000000      CCT    Conclude and Terminate

These are halt instructions; the CN instruction indicates that one of the 64 processes has finished its work; the CT instruction indicates that one of the processes has found what all the processes were looking for, and thus all 64 processes are to be stopped forthwith.


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