A Comparative Study : Microprogrammed Vs Risc Architectures For Symbolic Processing
Jean-Claude Heudin, Christophe Metivier, Didier Demigny, Thierry Maurin, Bertrand Zavidovique, Francis Devos · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1987
It is oftenclaimed that conventional computers are not well suited for human-like tasks : Vision (Image Processing), Intelligence (Symbolic Processing) ... In the particular case of Artificial Intelligence, dynamic type-checking is one example of basic task that must be improved. The solution implemented in most Lisp work-stations consists in a microprogrammed architecture with a tagged memory. Another way to gain efficiency is to design a well suited instruction set for symbolic processing, which reduces the semantic gap between the high level language and the machine code. In this framework, the RISC concept provides a convenient approach to study new architectures for symbolic processing. This paper compares both approaches and describes our projectof designing a compact symbolic processor for Artificial Intelligence applications.