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Encyclopedia > Intel P6

The P6 microarchitecture is the sixth generation Intel x86 microprocessor architecture, released in 1995. It was succeeded by the NetBurst microarchitecture in 2000, but eventually revived in the Pentium M line of microprocessors. The successor to the Pentium M variant of the P6 microarchitecture is the Intel Core microarchitecture. Microarchitecture consists of a set of microprocessor design techniques used to implement the instruction set (including microcode, pipelining, cache systems, etc. ... Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC, SEHK: 4335), founded in 1968 as Integrated Electronics Corporation, is an American multinational corporation that is best known for designing and manufacturing microprocessors and specialized integrated circuits. ... x86 or 80x86 is the generic name of a microprocessor architecture first developed and manufactured by Intel. ... A microprocessor is a programmable digital electronic component that incorporates the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single semiconducting integrated circuit (IC). ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... The Intel NetBurst Microarchitecture, called P68 inside Intel, is the successor to the P6 microarchitecture in the x86 family of CPUs made by Intel. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Introduced in March 2003, the Pentium M is an x86 architecture microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. ... The Intel Core microarchitecture (previously known as the Intel Next-Generation Micro-Architecture, or NGMA) is a multi-core processor microarchitecture unveiled by Intel in Q1 2006. ...

Contents

From Pentium Pro to Pentium III

The P6 core was the sixth generation Intel microprocessor in the x86 space. The first implementation of the P6 core was the Pentium Pro CPU in 1995, the immediate successor to the original Pentium design (P5). Pentium Pro 256 KB Pentium Pro 512 KB Pentium Pro 1 MB Pentium Pro underside (256/512) Pentium II Overdrive The Pentium Pro is a sixth-generation x86 architecture microprocessor (P6 core) by Intel originally intended to replace the original Pentium in a full range of applications, but later reduced...


Some techniques first used in the x86 space in the P6 core include:

  • Speculative execution and out-of-order completion (called "dynamic execution" by Intel), which required new retire units in the execution core. This lessened pipeline stalls, and in part enabled greater speed-scaling of the Pentium Pro and successive generations of CPUs.
  • Superpipelining, which increased from Pentium's 5-stage pipeline to 14 of the Pentium Pro, and eventually morphed into the 10-stage pipeline of the Pentium III, and the 12- to 14-stage pipeline of the Pentium M.
  • Integrated L2 cache that runs at the full speed of the processing core, instead of the earlier designs of off-die (on motherboard) cache, which runs at a fraction of the CPU frequency.
  • Wider 36-bit physical address bus to support more than 4 GiB of physical memory (the linear address space of a process was still limited to 4 GiB).
  • Register renaming, which enabled more efficient execution of multiple instructions in the pipeline.

The P6 architecture lasted three generations from the Pentium Pro to Pentium III, and was widely known for low power consumption, excellent integer performance, and relatively high instructions per cycle (IPC). When the new NetBurst (P68) architecture was conceived, initially in the Willamette core, which had relatively low IPC and less efficient overall design both in terms of power consumption and throughput efficiency, the P6 line of processing cores were largely thought to be abandoned. In computer science, speculative execution is the execution of code whose result may not actually be needed. ... Pentium III logo The Pentium III is an x86 (more precisely, an i686) architecture microprocessor by Intel, introduced on February 26, 1999. ... A gibibyte is a unit of information or computer storage. ... In computer engineering, register renaming refers to a technique used to avoid unnecessary serialization of program operations imposed by the reuse of registers by those operations. ...


Revived architecture in Pentium M (Banias and Dothan)

Upon release of the Pentium 4's mobile variant, it was quickly realized that the new NetBurst core was not ideal for mobile computing. The Netburst-based processors were simply not as efficient per clock or per watt compared to their P6 predecessors. Pentium 4-Mobile ran much hotter than the Pentium III-M and didn't offer significant performance advantages. Its inefficiency affected not only the cooling system complexity, but also the all-important battery life.


Intel, realizing that their new architecture wasn't the best choice for the mobile space, went back to the drawing boards for a design that would be optimally suited for this market segment. The result was a hybrid, modernized P6 design called the Pentium M: Introduced in March 2003, the Pentium M is an x86 architecture microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. ...


Design Overview[1]

  • Socket 479. Electrically similar to Socket 478, but not compatible.
  • Faster front side bus. With the initial Banias core, Intel adopted the 400 MT/s Netburst bus. The Dothan core moved to the 533 MT/s bus, following Pentium 4's evolution.
  • Larger L2 cache. Initially 1 MiB, then 2 MiB in Dothan. Dynamic cache activation by quadrant selector from sleep states.
  • SSE2 support.
  • Pipelining lengthening by 3-4 stages for improved clock scaling.
  • Dedicated register stack management.
  • Addition of global history to branch prediction table.
  • Micro-ops Fusion of certain sub-instructions mediated by decoding units. x86 commands can be combined into fewer RISC micro operations.
  • Enhanced SpeedStep III (EIST). The processor can clock down to a fraction of its maximum speed and voltage when idle, bringing power usage down to only a few Watts.

The Pentium M was the most power efficient processor for notebooks for several years, consuming under 30 Watts at maximum load and a mere 4-5 Watts while idle. The processing efficiency gains brought about by its modernization allowed it to rival the Netburst processors clocked nearly one gigahertz higher and equipped with much more memory and bus bandwidth.[1] This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In computing, Socket 478 is a type of CPU socket used for Intels Pentium 4 and Celeron series CPUs. ... Diagram of a CPU memory cache A CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. ... The three-letter acronym MIB may refer to any of several concepts: Management information base, a computing information repository used (for example) by SNMP In marbles, any marble, but esp. ... SSE2, Streaming Single Instruction, Multiple Data Extensions 2, is one of the IA-32 SIMD instruction sets, first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2001. ... SpeedStepâ„¢ is a series of technologies (including SpeedStep, SpeedStep II, and SpeedStep III) built into some Intel processors. ...


Pentium M's primary shortcoming was in the floating point realm. The P6 core had formidable floating point performance throughout much of its lifetime, but the newer AMD Athlon and Athlon 64 cores, along with the powerful floating point SIMD capabilities of Pentium 4, outclassed it. Although Intel implemented SSE2 in Pentium M, the implementation was not equal to that within the Athlon 64 or Pentium 4. So, on tasks where Pentium M was relying heavily on its floating point unit instead of its cache and integer performance, it would present disappointing performance.[1][2] A floating-point number is a digital representation for a number in a certain subset of the rational numbers, and is often used to approximate an arbitrary real number on a computer. ... -1... A floating point unit (FPU) is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating point numbers. ...


Intel Core (Yonah)

The Yonah CPU was launched in January 2006 under the Core brand. Single and dual-core versions were sold under the Core Solo and Core Duo brands respectively (the Solo processor being a Duo, but with one disabled core). These processors provided partial solutions to some of the foregoing Pentium M's shortcomings, by adding to its P6 microarchitecture: CPU can stand for: in computing: Central processing unit in journalism: Commonwealth Press Union in law enforcement: Crime prevention unit in software: Critical patch update, a type of software patch distributed by Oracle Corporation in Macleans College is often known as Ash Lim. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... It has been suggested that Intel Pentium Dual Core be merged into this article or section. ... Introduced in March 2003, the Pentium M is an x86 architecture microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. ... Microarchitecture consists of a set of microprocessor design techniques used to implement the instruction set (including microcode, pipelining, cache systems, etc. ...

  • SSE3 Support
  • Dual-core technology with shared L2 cache (restructuring processor organization)

This resulted in the interim microarchitecture for mobile only CPUs, part way between P6 and the next all processor Core microarchitecture introduced with the CPUs branded Core 2, Pentium Dual-Core, Celeron, and Xeon. CPU can stand for: in computing: Central processing unit in journalism: Commonwealth Press Union in law enforcement: Crime prevention unit in software: Critical patch update, a type of software patch distributed by Oracle Corporation in Macleans College is often known as Ash Lim. ... The Intel Core Microarchitecture is Intels new processor architecture. ... CPU can stand for: in computing: Central processing unit in journalism: Commonwealth Press Union in law enforcement: Crime prevention unit in software: Critical patch update, a type of software patch distributed by Oracle Corporation in Macleans College is often known as Ash Lim. ... Core 2 Duo brand logo This article is about Intel processors branded as Intel Core 2. ... The new Pentium Dual-Core logo The Pentium Dual-Core brand refers to lower-end microprocessors (CPU) from Intel with 1 MB of cache and the 64-bit Allendale core or 32-bit Yonah core belonging to the eighth or P-M (Intel P6 mobile) generation of x86 architecture respectively. ... Celeron is a brand name given by Intel Corp. ... The Xeon is Intels brand name for its server-class x86 microprocessors intended for multiple-processor machines. ...


P6 based chips

Celeron is a brand name given by Intel Corp. ... 633MHz Celeron A Celeron is any of a large number of different budget x86 microprocessors produced by Intel and marketed as a budget/value CPU line. ... Pentium Pro 256 KB Pentium Pro 512 KB Pentium Pro 1 MB Pentium Pro underside (256/512) Pentium II Overdrive The Pentium Pro is a sixth-generation x86 architecture microprocessor (P6 core) by Intel originally intended to replace the original Pentium in a full range of applications, but later reduced... Pentium II – front view The Pentium II is an x86 architecture microprocessor by Intel, introduced on May 7, 1997. ... The Xeon is Intels brand name for its server-class x86 microprocessors intended for multiple-processor machines. ... Pentium III logo The Pentium III is an x86 (more precisely, an i686) architecture microprocessor by Intel, introduced on February 26, 1999. ... The Xeon is Intels brand name for its server-class x86 microprocessors intended for multiple-processor machines. ... Introduced in March 2003, the Pentium M is an x86 architecture microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. ... It has been suggested that Intel Pentium Dual Core be merged into this article or section. ...

See also

Introduced in March 2003, the Pentium M is an x86 architecture microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. ... The Intel Core microarchitecture (previously known as the Intel Next-Generation Micro-Architecture, or NGMA) is a multi-core processor microarchitecture unveiled by Intel in Q1 2006. ... Robert Bob P. Colwell (? –) is an electrical engineer who worked at Intel and is now an independent consultant. ... Microarchitecture consists of a set of microprocessor design techniques used to implement the instruction set (including microcode, pipelining, cache systems, etc. ...

References

  1. ^ a b c Lal Shimpi, Anand. Intel's 90nm Pentium M 755: Dothan Investigated, AnandTech, July 21, 2004.
  2. ^ Pentium M Review, CPUID.com, accessed May 1, 2007.
P5 Intel x86/x86-64 microarchitectures NetBurst, Core, Nehalem, Sandy Bridge

  Results from FactBites:
 
IA-32 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2370 words)
It should be noted that Intel refers to the 64-bit mode in their newer 64-bit processors, such as the newer Pentium 4/Pentium D and Core 2 Duo chips and their Xeon derivatives, as "IA-32e".
Intel was the inventor and is the biggest supplier of processors compatible with this instruction set, but it is not the only supplier of such processors.
Intel started using the set starting with the Xeon Nocona core in late 2004, introducing it to the desktop market with the Pentium 4 E0 revision in early 2005.
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