Can FPGA 060 run more than 100 Mhz?

[matthey]

Cache breaks compatibility but if you go with unified cache with snooping, self modifying code is even possible (to a certain extent : you have to take into account the instruction prefetch and the pipeline depth).

Self-modifying code should work with snooping but would be slow. The caches only need to be invalidated if using writethrough caches (writethrough caches are probably not much slower than copyback caches with the fast memory and high memory bandwidth). It should be possible to have self-modifying code and cache compatibility better than the 68040 or 68060 with much larger cache sizes.

If the Amiga chipset is implemented inside the FPGA, you can even snoop DMAs and keep cache coherency over Chip RAM.

Yea, there are several issues with the Amiga chipset that should be solvable with the chipset and CPU in the same fpga. Maybe even multi-threading/SMD would work with a little trickery. It's easy to duplicate an fpga core.

Due to the way Exec detects CPU, you can have a core with 68000 exception frame and '020 user instructions (long branches, bitfields, 64-bit MUL/DIV and extra EAs).

This is basically the way the Phoenix core in the Vampire will work although some of the 68020 features don't fit in the Cyclone II of the Vampire. There is no 64 bit MUL/DIV (although 32 bit longword versions were added) and it's missing most if not all bitfield instructions and most if not all double indirect addressing modes. The specs may change.

By the way, the IPC of Phoenix will be limited by only 1 integer pipe but should be close to 1. Simulation has showed that much more is possible with more pipes (each pipe can be stronger than the 68060). I don't think there is any way that more than 3 integer pipes would be useful. The instruction fetch becomes large, there are too many memory accesses between 3 instructions and the CPU clock speed slows down some with each pipe. Even 3 pipes may not be an advantage although a few tricks may make this possible without OoO execution .

[wawrzon]

matt, its been few weeks now that you said apollo core was going to be tested on vampire. no news from that front?

[matthey]

matt, its been few weeks now that you said apollo core was going to be tested on vampire. no news from that front?

Gunnar said that the Phoenix core is complete (all units) as of April 16. It required significant downsizing from the Apollo which took time. Testing is taking place in simulation. There was a bring-up party (in the Vampire) planned and then delayed due to scheduling problems. I don't know if they are waiting to get together or what. I don't think the Phoenix core is working in the Vampire yet but I believe they are close. Some bugs may need to be fixed before AmigaOS works. All I can say is be patient. These guys are working in their free time. That's part of the problem with Amiga projects.

[psxphill]

It should be possible to have self-modifying code and cache compatibility better than the 68040 or 68060 with much larger cache sizes.

It can't be better compatibility if it actually ends up running the code that was written from ram that the 68060 wouldn't, if it's different then it will always be less compatible.
 
For example on the playstation there is code that wipes itself out of ram and keeps running from the cache. Snooping would make that fail.

[wawrzon]

i thought igor stepped down for the time being, so this is the project on part of gunnar (and whom else? submicron jens?) i take it. no wonder they still do simulation, but do they have vampire hardware at disposal? who will provide hardware instead of majsta of all goeas well? kipper or some other subcontractor?

well im not impatient, i dont have a 600 anymore so practically its all the same to me. but after some years of bold claims what concerns natami core there should be something to show off in the end;)

[Iggy]

Oh dear God, please tell me this isn't Gunnar von Boehm that you are referring to.

[wawrzon]

@iggy
i am. but lets keep calm on that.

[Iggy]

@iggy
i am. but lets keep calm on that.

OK, I can give Gunnar the benefit of the doubt, but the word "vitriolic" comes to mind when I think about him.

[A6000]

@psxphil, the thread may have 060 in its title, but none of the softcores are intended to be a copy of the 060, even the 050 of the natami was going to have additional instructions and registers.
The 060 instruction set is incompatible with almost all processors currently used in amigas, so any software written for the 060 may not run on most amigas, that is not being compatible.
Are you saying you want to freeze the evolution of the processor at the 060 level, with that kind of attitude we should still all be using 68000s.
The speed at which an FPGA softcore can run is limited, so to get greater performance, the softcore must use parallelism and simd instructions, this is incompatible with any amiga processor but it is worth the sacrifice if we want faster amigas, I know it is never going to be the fastest but we should try to get better speed or the platform will stagnate and die.

[Iggy]

@psxphil, the thread may have 060 in its title, but none of the softcores are intended to be a copy of the 060, even the 050 of the natami was going to have additional instructions and registers.
The 060 instruction set is incompatible with almost all processors currently used in amigas, so any software written for the 060 may not run on most amigas, that is not being compatible.
Are you saying you want to freeze the evolution of the processor at the 060 level, with that kind of attitude we should still all be using 68000s.
The speed at which an FPGA softcore can run is limited, so to get greater performance, the softcore must use parallelism and simd instructions, this is incompatible with any amiga processor but it is worth the sacrifice if we want faster amigas, I know it is never going to be the fastest but we should try to get better speed or the platform will stagnate and die.

Well said sir!
Even Motorola didn't always push for the '060.
The '040 was still being promoted at the end of the 68K cycle.
I have PCI bridge devices that were designed primarily for that chip.
And the highest level of compatibility would be, as I mentioned before, an enhanced '030.
And why stop development?
Frederic's comment about conversion to a barrel processor is actually pretty good.
FPGAs have plenty of room for the extra registers needed for that.
And the software problems that result from other SMP solutions are lessened by this approach.

[matthey]

It can't be better compatibility if it actually ends up running the code that was written from ram that the 68060 wouldn't, if it's different then it will always be less compatible.
 
For example on the playstation there is code that wipes itself out of ram and keeps running from the cache. Snooping would make that fail.

Snooping with writethrough caches would be more Amiga compatible. Many early Amiga programs didn't flush the caches because the caches were small enough that there was no problem (not so with larger caches) or didn't flush the cash at all. This should always work properly. It's also more 68060 compatible with larger caches because the caches don't have to be manually or properly flushed and larger caches are possible with no problems that I am aware of. Your Playstation example should not happen with snooping and writethrough caches. Writing over existing code will replace it with the new code. No flushing is needing except for code that is already in the CPU pipeline. No dirty caches or inconsistency between caches and memory is otherwise possible.

i thought igor stepped down for the time being, so this is the project on part of gunnar (and whom else? submicron jens?) i take it. no wonder they still do simulation, but do they have vampire hardware at disposal? who will provide hardware instead of majsta of all goes well? kipper or some other subcontractor?

well im not impatient, i dont have a 600 anymore so practically its all the same to me. but after some years of bold claims what concerns natami core there should be something to show off in the end;)

Majsta is back to working on the Amiga with the help of the Apollo Team . He is planning to create a new Amiga accelerator with a much larger Altera fpga for the full Apollo. I'd rather not give any specifics yet as they may change.

The core fpga programmers are Gunnar von Boehn, Jens Künzer and Christophe Hoehne who have all been active recently. Igor Majstorovic (majsta) has been fairly active recently also. I am the most active non-fpga/non-VHDL programmer and have helped with 68k statistics and ISA/encoding development.

[wawrzon]

@matt
sounds good. thats probably why vampires are on hold, hope they will be able to provide the core for those too, but the decissions must be taken for most efficiency of course.

[Iggy]

Majsta is back to working on the Amiga with the help of the Apollo Team . He is planning to create a new Amiga accelerator with a much larger Altera fpga for the full Apollo. I'd rather not give any specifics yet as they may change.

That is really good news. I've been playing around with an Altera development board and I really like their products.
If you hunt for them, there are some spectacular buys available on larger Cyclone III chips.

FPGAs are also the only way I can speed up some 8 bits projects. There are faster 6502 and Z-80 compatible chips, but the fastest 6809 compatible I can find are the Hitachi 6309 3 MHz chips that I can overclock slightly.
With an FPGA 25-40MHz is easily attainable (high if I opt for something in the Stratix line).

And many FPGAs have built-in DSPs. Anyone following A-eon's new sound card know how useful that can be.

It makes me wonder if we could build a video decoder similar to the old Creative Labs DXR3 but specific to Amiga (Zorro II/III or video slot based).
We already have genlocks, but it would be nice to be able to play back files and DVDs directly.

[ElPolloDiabl]

The 68060 can't clock higher than 100mhz.
 What was required to make it clock higher? Was it something minor, like a longer pipeline. Just a heat issue? Or was a major redesign required?

[Iggy]

Perhaps if the process to produce the die was smaller/finer and the chip operated on less current higher operating speeds would be possible.
And 100 MHz is an overclocked speed.
Freescale flatly states there were never '60s rated higher than 75 MHz.
Further, they also insist that that "FE133" chip the Chinese are selling does not have a valid Motorola/Freescale ID number.

[Cosmos Amiga]

The FE133 have no MMU and no FPU : anyway, I'm looking for one unit...

If anybody have a 68060FE133 for sale, please email me !