A 1.2 W 66 MHz superscalar RISC microprocessor for set-tops, video games, and PDAs
Dac Pham, J. Kahle, Deene Ogden, M. Putrino, Tai Ngo, Kathy Hoover, Cang Tran, M. Sweet, Hung Hua, Quan Nguyen, S. Mallick, L. Eisen, A.J. Loper, R. Chitturi, T. Lyon, B. Ho, R. Patel, E. Cheesebrough, Belliappa Kuttanna, A. Piejko · 2002
This 32 b superscalar processor, having 18 mW/MHz projected power consumption at 66 MHz, is designed for desktop companions and high-end embedded multimedia applications with graphics-intensive requirements such as high-performance video games. This processor, the latest member of the PowerPC microprocessor family, can also be used in other low-power computing applications. The processor is fabricated in a 3.3 V, 0.5 m, 4-level metal CMOS resulting in 1 M transistors in a 7.07/spl times/7.07 mm/sup 2/ chip. Dual 4 kB instruction and data caches coupled to a high-performance 64 b multiplexed bus and separate execution units (float, integer, branch, and load-store) result in 2 instructions per clock cycle peak rate. Low-power design includes dynamically-powered-down execution units. Standby power is <2 mW. CPU to bus clock ratios of 2/spl times/ and 3/spl times/ allow control of system power while maintaining processor performance.