PPC Instruction Set Now Open Source

[Gorf]

IBM is open sourcing the instruction set architecture of its Power family of processors. A FPGA softcore is already done and running on Xilinx.

https://openpowerfoundation.org/the-...ation-journey/


This could bring us some interesting new accelerators for classic Amigas and of course some new hardware for NG.

[phx]

What I didn't understand: is it just about the POWER architecture, used only by the big IBM servers, or is PowerPC included?

I really like this architecture. Opening PowerPC, similar to ARM, should have happened much earlier. Then we might have got more devices based on PPC instead of ARM, which offers a more powerful ISA.

[malko]

Seems to be a really cool news !
Now have to read the link

[starship]

I wish warp3D had an open source too.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by phx

What I didn't understand: is it just about the POWER architecture, used only by the big IBM servers, or is PowerPC included?

I really like this architecture. Opening PowerPC, similar to ARM, should have happened much earlier. Then we might have got more devices based on PPC instead of ARM, which offers a more powerful ISA.

Reading that suggest just the POWER cpus like used in iSeries etc. Still pretty cool.

But PowerPC would have been the dream, unless missed something here

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Gorf

IBM is open sourcing the instruction set architecture of its Power family of processors. A FPGA softcore is already done and running on Xilinx.

I just wonder what this means. The ISA was open and documented to begin with, so there are no surprises waiting for anyone. Does that mean that IBM promises not to hunt down re-implementations of POWER by their lawyers? Then, again, why would anyone? New POWER processors are being made, but they have no share in the low-end low-cost market (where ARM has a standing), so an FPGA re-implementation doesn't hurt them at all. It is much too POWERless (pardon) power-less to be a competitor for them.

[rare_j]

Yeah I don't really get this. I thought the whole point of POWER was to run AIX and all the associated enterprise level things that brings.
Maybe this is to encourage more linux involvement.

[nogginthenog]

Maybe IBM are a little scared about RISC-V?

[rare_j]

Some speculation here: Register

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

Reading that suggest just the POWER cpus like used in iSeries etc. Still pretty cool.

But PowerPC would have been the dream, unless missed something here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_ISA

PowerPC ist part of it since 2006 if I understand this correctly. So it should be legal now to build a fully PPC compatible CPU - royalty free.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by rare_j

Yeah I don't really get this. I thought the whole point of POWER was to run AIX and all the associated enterprise level things that brings.
Maybe this is to encourage more linux involvement.

You don't pick AIX anymore, AIX Feature development has slowed down massively since AIX6 which usually is not a good sign.


POWER8/9 has a couple of niches in large memory size systems, and most customers setting up new installs now just use Linux.


This POWER 'Opensourcing' feels desperate and 20 years too late.

[NorthWay]

I used to admin AIX, and together with POWER it is great stuff.
I'd take it over linux any time of day.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by Locutus

You don't pick AIX anymore, AIX Feature development has slowed down massively since AIX6 which usually is not a good sign.


POWER8/9 has a couple of niches in large memory size systems, and most customers setting up new installs now just use Linux.


This POWER 'Opensourcing' feels desperate and 20 years too late.

We just moved over to power 9 on our iSeries where I work .

[Locutus]

'iSeries' thats like saying you are in a hostage situation.