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amulet

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amulet


  3  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Amulet  \Am"u*let\,  n.  [L.  amuletum:  cf  F.  amulette.] 
  An  ornament,  gem,  or  scroll,  or  a  package  containing  a  relic, 
  etc.,  worn  as  a  charm  or  preservative  against  evils  or 
  mischief,  such  as  diseases  and  witchcraft,  and  generally 
  inscribed  with  mystic  forms  or  characters. 
 
  Note:  [Also  used  figuratively.] 
 
  From  WordNet  r  1.6  [wn]: 
 
  amulet 
  n  :  a  trinket  or  piece  of  jewelry  thought  to  be  a  protection 
  against  evil  [syn:  {talisman}] 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  Amulet 
 
    An  implementation  or  the  {Advanced  RISC  Machine} 
  {microprocessor}  architecture  using  the  {micropipeline}  design 
  style.  In  April  1994  the  Amulet  group  in  the  Computer  Science 
  department  of  {Manchester  University}  took  delivery  of  the 
  AMULET1  {microprocessor}.  This  was  their  first  large  scale 
  asynchronous  circuit  and  the  world's  first  implementation  of  a 
  commercial  microprocessor  architecture  (ARM)  in  {asynchronous 
  logic}. 
 
  Work  was  begun  at  the  end  of  1990  and  the  design  despatched 
  for  fabrication  in  February  1993.  The  primary  intent  was  to 
  demonstrate  that  an  asynchronous  microprocessor  can  consume 
  less  power  than  a  synchronous  design. 
 
  The  design  incorporates  a  number  of  concurrent  units  which 
  cooperate  to  give  instruction  level  compatibility  with  the 
  existing  synchronous  part  These  include  an  Address  unit, 
  which  autonomously  generates  instruction  fetch  requests  and 
  interleaves  ({nondeterministic}ally)  data  requests  from  the 
  Execution  unit;  a  {Register}  file  which  supplies  operands, 
  queues  write  destinations  and  handles  data  dependencies;  an 
  Execution  unit  which  includes  a  multiplier,  a  shifter  and  an 
  {ALU}  with  data-dependent  delay;  a  Data  interface  which 
  performs  byte  extraction  and  alignment  and  includes  an 
  {instruction  prefetch}  buffer,  and  a  control  path  which 
  performs  {instruction  decode}.  These  units  only  synchronise 
  to  exchange  data. 
 
  The  design  demonstrates  that  all  the  usual  problems  of 
  processor  design  can  be  solved  in  this  asynchronous  framework: 
  backwards  {instruction  set}  compatibility,  {interrupts}  and 
  exact  {exceptions}  for  {memory  faults}  are  all  covered.  It 
  also  demonstrates  some  unusual  behaviour,  for  instance 
  {nondeterministic}  prefetch  depth  beyond  a  branch  instruction 
  (though  the  instructions  which  actually  get  executed  are  of 
  course,  deterministic).  There  are  some  unusual  problems  for 
  {compiler}  {optimisation},  as  the  metric  which  must  be  used  to 
  compare  alternative  code  sequences  is  continuous  rather  than 
  discrete,  and  the  {nondeterminism}  in  external  behaviour  must 
  also  be  taken  into  account. 
 
  The  chip  was  designed  using  a  mixture  of  custom  {datapath}  and 
  compiled  control  logic  elements,  as  was  the  synchronous  ARM. 
  The  fabrication  technology  is  the  same  as  that  used  for  one 
  version  of  the  synchronous  part  reducing  the  number  of 
  variables  when  comparing  the  two  parts 
 
  Two  silicon  implementations  have  been  received  and  preliminary 
  measurements  have  been  taken  from  these  The  first  is  a  0.7um 
  process  and  has  achieved  about  28  kDhrystones  running  the 
  standard  {benchmark}  program.  The  other  is  a  1  um 
  implementation  and  achieves  about  20  kDhrystones  For  the 
  faster  of  the  parts  this  is  equivalent  to  a  synchronous  {ARM6} 
  clocked  at  around  20MHz;  in  the  case  of  AMULET1  it  is  likely 
  that  this  speed  is  limited  by  the  memory  system  cycle  time 
  (just  over  50ns)  rather  than  the  processor  chip  itself 
 
  A  fair  comparison  of  devices  at  the  same  geometries  gives  the 
  AMULET1  performance  as  about  70%  of  that  of  an  {ARM6}  running 
  at  20MHz.  Its  power  consumption  is  very  similar  to  that  of 
  the  ARM6;  the  AMULET1  therefore  delivers  about  80  MIPS/W 
  (compared  with  around  120  from  a  20MHz  ARM6).  Multiplication 
  is  several  times  faster  on  the  AMULET1  owing  to  the  inclusion 
  of  a  specialised  asynchronous  multiplier.  This  performance  is 
  reasonable  considering  that  the  AMULET1  is  a  first  generation 
  part  whereas  the  synchronous  ARM  has  undergone  several  design 
  iterations.  AMULET2  (currently  under  development)  is  expected 
  to  be  three  times  faster  than  AMULET1  -  120  k{dhrystones}  - 
  and  use  less  power. 
 
  The  {macrocell}  size  (without  {pad  ring})  is  5.5  mm  by  4.5  mm 
  on  a  1  micron  {CMOS}  process,  which  is  about  twice  the  area  of 
  the  synchronous  part  Some  of  the  increase  can  be  attributed 
  to  the  more  sophisticated  organisation  of  the  new  part:  it  has 
  a  deeper  {pipeline}  than  the  clocked  version  and  it  supports 
  multiple  outstanding  memory  requests;  there  is  also 
  specialised  circuitry  to  increase  the  multiplication  speed. 
  Although  there  is  undoubtedly  some  overhead  attributable  to 
  the  asynchronous  control  logic,  this  is  estimated  to  be  closer 
  to  20%  than  to  the  100%  suggested  by  the  direct  comparison. 
 
  AMULET1  is  code  compatible  with  {ARM6}  and  is  so  is  capable  of 
  running  existing  {binaries}  without  modification.  The 
  implementation  also  includes  features  such  as  interrupts  and 
  memory  aborts. 
 
  The  work  was  part  of  a  broad  {ESPRIT}  funded  investigation 
  into  low-power  technologies  within  the  European  {Open 
  Microprocessor  systems  Initiative}  (OMI)  programme,  where 
  there  is  interest  in  low-power  techniques  both  for  portable 
  equipment  and  (in  the  longer  term)  to  alleviate  the  problems 
  of  the  increasingly  high  dissipation  of  high-performance 
  chips.  This  initial  investigation  into  the  role  {asynchronous 
  logic}  might  play  has  now  demonstrated  that  asynchronous 
  techniques  can  be  applied  to  problems  of  the  scale  of  a 
  complete  {microprocessor}. 
 
  {Home  (http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/amulet)} 
 
  (1994-12-08) 
 
 




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