versions of
RISC processors had promised a major step
forward in speed but existing manufacturers were slow to
introduce a RISC type processor, so Sun went ahead and
their open philosophy, they licenced it to other companies,
rather than manufacture it themselves. The evolution and
standardisation of SPARC is now directed by the non-profit
among others. The SPARC design was radical at the time, even
omitting multiple cycle multiply and divide instructions (like
a few others), while most RISC CPUs are more conventional.
SPARC implementations usually contain 128 or 144
registers,
(
CISC designs typically had 16 or less). At each time 32
registers are available - 8 are global, the rest are allocated
in a "window" from a stack of registers. The window is moved
16 registers down the stack during a function call, so that
the upper and lower 8 registers are shared between functions,
to pass and return values, and 8 are local. The window is
moved up on return, so registers are loaded or saved only at
the top or bottom of the register stack. This allows
functions to be called in as little as 1 cycle. Like some
other RISC processors, reading global register zero always
returns zero and writing it has no effect. SPARC is
pipelined for performance, and like previous processors, a
SPARC is "scalable" mainly because the register stack can be
expanded (up to 512, or 32 windows), to reduce loads and saves
between functions, or scaled down to reduce
interrupt or
saved. Function calls are usually much more frequent, so the
large register set is usually a plus.
SPARC is not a chip, but a specification, and so there are
various implementations of it. It has undergone revisions,
and now has multiply and divide instructions. Most versions
are 32 bits, but there are designs for 64-bit and
society to be considered for the
P1754 microprocessor
standard.
SPARC(R) is a registered trademark of SPARC International,
Inc. in the United States and other countries.
[The SPARC Architecture Manual, v8, ISBN 0-13-825001-4].
(1994-11-01)