POWER is the only architecture currently competitive with Intel in terms of raw performance, and boots using a fully FOSS firmware with no DRM antifeatures embedded. The primary disadvantage of power is cost, as it is currently targeted at the server and datacenter markets.
Open-sourcing some POWER-based designs is a good strategic move on IBM’s part, imo.
I would actually love to see POWER try to break into a more mainstream market.
Freedom/security asides, I really like some of design decisions that always had seemed to be ahead of everyone else, like having crypto and decimal floats right into the hardware.
While I admire Intel for being able to make incredible breakthroughs and pushing the limits of its flawed x86 design every couple years, I also kinda feel bad for IBM that has to see its better designed CPUs fall.
It’s not about actual architecture, what the programmer sees - it’s about microarchitecture. Intel has been delivering good muarch on an arch with lots of existing software.
Modern CPUs need microcode to run; generally the BIOS has a copy that is uploaded to the CPU at boot time. The OS can later upload updated microcode if it wants, but it always goes away at power-off, and then the next boot you’ll get the original BIOS copy again. You can update it permanently by flashing the BIOS, but as I understand it, that’s not a thing you can do while a (multitasking) OS is running, so it never happens automatically.
That said, the original article is talking about security chips that run outside the CPU, so they aren’t part of this microcode system. I have no idea whether their firmware can be updated.
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Don’t forget about POWER8!
Open-sourcing some POWER-based designs is a good strategic move on IBM’s part, imo.
I would actually love to see POWER try to break into a more mainstream market. Freedom/security asides, I really like some of design decisions that always had seemed to be ahead of everyone else, like having crypto and decimal floats right into the hardware.
While I admire Intel for being able to make incredible breakthroughs and pushing the limits of its flawed x86 design every couple years, I also kinda feel bad for IBM that has to see its better designed CPUs fall.
It’s not about actual architecture, what the programmer sees - it’s about microarchitecture. Intel has been delivering good muarch on an arch with lots of existing software.
I would love to learn more about these architectures. Is there a canonical reference book on the subject, something like SICP is for software?
If you find one, be sure to post it here as a new thread!
[Comment removed by author]
Modern CPUs need microcode to run; generally the BIOS has a copy that is uploaded to the CPU at boot time. The OS can later upload updated microcode if it wants, but it always goes away at power-off, and then the next boot you’ll get the original BIOS copy again. You can update it permanently by flashing the BIOS, but as I understand it, that’s not a thing you can do while a (multitasking) OS is running, so it never happens automatically.
That said, the original article is talking about security chips that run outside the CPU, so they aren’t part of this microcode system. I have no idea whether their firmware can be updated.