In Depth Info About The Cpu

[Racemaniac]

for a class i got, we gotta do a presentation about a cpu.
it might be nice to do it about the one the pandora uses (ARM Cortex-A8 from what i gathered from the site)

i'm looking around for what documentation i can find about it (one of the most important things is how the pipeline works).
any links to good docs are welcome (or suggestions for other cpu's i could take, or details about this cpu that might be interesting ^^.

 

[Holokauston]

Google makes you smart

ARM Cortex-A8

and this is the first page you get
http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM_Cortex-A8.html

that should cover any presentation, also including their own presentation PDFs at the bottom.

 

[ldesnogu]

You mean you were not able to find the Cortex-A8 manual on arm.com site? I think I gave you enough hints to find what you need
Note the Cortex-A8 in OMAP3530 is a r1p2 revision.

EDIT: @Holokauston you spoiled it

 

[Racemaniac]

You mean you were not able to find the Cortex-A8 manual on arm.com site? I think I gave you enough hints to find what you need
Note the Cortex-A8 in OMAP3530 is a r1p2 revision.

EDIT: @Holokauston you spoiled it

lol, i don't mean i don't find it ^^
but i'm sure a lot of people here are very familiar with it, so any good tips for important things i shouldn't forget, or docs besides the manual that might be useful could also be nice ^^

i ofcourse immediatly found the manual, and i'm right now reading through it .

 

[donny662]

I don't think there is much point in reading further than the introduction in the manual. Granted, I haven't looked at the Cortex-A8 manual, but I don't think your audience will care about how many clock cycles it takes to do an add operation. Al you really need to do is give your audience a high-level idea about what the cpu is, its features, and what makes the features stand out from other cpus.

Unless of course, you enjoy reading the manual. In which case, by all means, have fun!

 

[ldesnogu]

but i'm sure a lot of people here are very familiar with it, so any good tips for important things i shouldn't forget, or docs besides the manual that might be useful could also be nice ^^

I don't think anyone here is very familiar with it yet, I mean from a micro-architecture point of view, and those who are can't speak

 

[Exophase]

but i'm sure a lot of people here are very familiar with it, so any good tips for important things i shouldn't forget, or docs besides the manual that might be useful could also be nice ^^

I don't think anyone here is very familiar with it yet, I mean from a micro-architecture point of view, and those who are can't speak

If by that you mean that none of us know the specifics of the ARM-v7a architecture then yes

I wonder why ARM decided to start hiding their ISAs. Strange thing to do for such an ubiquitous platform.

Although we can always go back to snooping at GCC (even I have done this at some point)

 

[ldesnogu]

QUOTE
I don't think anyone here is very familiar with it yet, I mean from a micro-architecture point of view, and those who are can't speak

If by that you mean that none of us know the specifics of the ARM-v7a architecture then yes I was rather talking about micro-architecture. But you are right even the architecture is not widely known.

QUOTE
I wonder why ARM decided to start hiding their ISAs. Strange thing to do for such an ubiquitous platform.
Because of IP protection, patents and such things. I find it utterly stupid as indeed the platform is used by many people. I hope the battle with Intel will make some people realize the architecture would better be opened to everyone with no restriction, rather than completely closed or opened with very strict restrictions (for instance, if one downloads the "freely" available ARM ARMv5, one can't write a simulator).

QUOTE
Although we can always go back to snooping at GCC (even I have done this at some point)
That's alas your only choice, though binutils is the most useful starting point to get insight (the binutils from CodeSourcery is often in advance; BTW they released a new version today with Cortex-A9 support ).

 

[DJWillis]

Racemaniac,

I assume you have checked out http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/omap3530.html for more info on the SoC (in addition to the Cortex A8 core).

Depending on the level of detail you need that should give you a lot to chew on.

John

 

[Racemaniac]

Racemaniac,

I assume you have checked out http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/omap3530.html for more info on the SoC (in addition to the Cortex A8 core).

Depending on the level of detail you need that should give you a lot to chew on.

John


i found that too indeed, but that's less interesting, we're supposed to just talk about a cpu, not any peripherals coupled with it, but rather the things like its instruction set (how/why it was chosen, what it's designed for), the pipeline (same thing, how/why, as much details about that too), etc... (the course is still in progress, but we've got to start looking for a good cpu to do the presentation on). it's a course about basic computer architecture

 

[Holokauston]

Well start with that then during the course if you need more in depth info contact them and tell them that you are doing it for school etc. and that you picked their arch because you see a great future in more effective but still light weight and portable circuits etc

The future is portable, preferably small and powerful