Re: IBM's PPC being open sourced .. what does this mean for embedded devices ?

From	Dimiter_Popoff <dp@tgi-sci.com>
Newsgroups	comp.arch.embedded
Subject	Re: IBM's PPC being open sourced .. what does this mean for embedded devices ?
Date	2019-09-17 07:11 +0300
Organization	TGI
Message-ID	<qlpmcl$ccj$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	<qlokni$qpk$1@dont-email.me> <qlor25$51l$1@dont-email.me> <078aae7b-85e7-4fa1-b668-fc5631284fec@googlegroups.com>

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On 9/17/2019 5:11, Rick C wrote:
> On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 4:24:40 PM UTC-4, Dimiter wrote:
>> On 9/16/2019 21:36, kristoff wrote:
>>> HI all,
>>>
>>>
>>> I know is this kind-of old news by now, but -as far as I see- this has
>>> not been discussed here:
>>>
>>> IBM is open-sourcing their PowerPC processor design.
>>>
>>> (E.g. see here and other links:)
>>> https://www.eejournal.com/article/ibm-gives-away-powerpc-goes-open-source/)
>>>
>>>
>>> As PowerPC processors do are used in embedded devices, anybody any idea
>>> what this would mean for the embedded-processor market?
>>> Are we now going to be flooded by Chinese ppc-based devboards?
>>> And is this going to kill the risc-v?
>>
>> If someone takes on and starts making more power architecture processors
>> the impact could be huge, this is by far the best architecture I have
>> seen in my life - and I have explored most of them (and used power for
>> decades now).
>> Then it might make no impact at all, how many of those making decisions
>> of such magnitude can see further than the next quarter report and
>> can look into something other than what "everybody is doing".
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> BTW.
>>> Does anybody have an easy-to-use overview of different powerPC
>>> architectures out there? (especially for embedded use)
>>>
>>> I've been trying to understand the different wikipedia pages on the
>>> powerPC architectures, but it all seams to one giant mix of names,
>>> numbers and 'books' from a dozen different companies.
>>
>> The only maker of Power architecture processors is NXP (since they
>> acquired Freescale). IBM had an embedded core some ages ago, 401
>> or something like that, which some other company - AMCC I think - took
>> on but I never used any of these.
>>
>>>
>>> Cheerio!
>>> Kr. Bonne,
>>
>> Thanks for posting, I had missed the news so this is new to me.
>> Good news I suppose, gives some hope that this great architecture
>> will survive after all.
>>
>> Hopefully I can migrate DPS to 64 bit power sooner rather than
>> later, I have been wanting to do it for quite some time now. Might also
>> be some help.
> 
> Maybe I'm not remembering it right, but I thought the PPC fell out of favor because as processors got faster and more complex, the PPC architecture lost it's advantages.  I would seem I am not remembering this correctly.

The architecture did not lose its advantages, it is just as silicon got
faster messy designs like the x86 could run fast enough for the general
population.

I don't know how far did IBM go developing it, may be they still do.
I know only the Motorola/Freescale line, some of which I have used and
am using. Their latest designs are 64 bits QORIQ (someone got away
without being punished for that name) which look quite good really.

> 
> So why did the PPC architecture stop being developed?  Is this still a competitive architecture in general?  I'm guessing it is still competitive in lower end processors for sure.  How does it stack up to MIPS?  Isn't that one also open source?  Or was that open sourced only in a very limited way?
> 

MIPS looks like a smaller scale power, I have not used it, just looked
at it. No idea if it is open source. Microchip make some 32 bit MCU-s
with MIPS, I have not heard people using them complain.

Dimiter

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