POWER2 FIXED-POINT, DATA CACHE, AND STORAGE CONTROL UNITS

The POWER2(TM) fixed-point, data cache, and storage control units provide a tightly integrated subunit for a second-generation high-performance superscalar RISC processor. These functional units provide dual fixed-point execution units and a large multiported data cache, as well as high-performance interfaces to memory, I/O, and the other execution units in the processor. These units provide the following features: dual fixed-point execution units, improved fixed-point/floating-point synchronization, new floating-point load and store quadword instructions, improved address translation, improved fixed-point multiply/divide, large multiported D-cache, increased bandwidth into and out of the caches through wider data buses, an improved external interrupt mechanism, and an improved I/O DMA mechanism to support multiple-streaming Micro Channels.(R)