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The IBM eServer BladeCenter JS20 - IBM Redbooks

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capabilities were usually referred to as Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD)<br />

extensions and operated on short vectors. Examples of SIMD extensions in<br />

widespread use today include:<br />

► Intel Multimedia Extensions (MMX)<br />

► Intel Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE)<br />

► AMD 3DNow!<br />

► Motorola Altivec and <strong>IBM</strong> VMX<br />

<strong>The</strong> SIMD extensions found in microprocessors used in desktop computers<br />

operate on short vectors of length 2, 4, 8, or 16. This is in contrast to the classic<br />

vector supercomputers that can often exploit long vectors of length 64 or more.<br />

VMX extensions to PowerPC Architecture<br />

<strong>The</strong> VMX extensions to PowerPC Architecture add a vector processor (VXU) to<br />

the PowerPC logical processing model that was described earlier in “PowerPC<br />

User Instruction Set Architecture” on page 33. This is illustrated in Figure 2-11.<br />

Fixed-Point<br />

Instructions<br />

Fixed-Point<br />

Processing<br />

(FXU)<br />

Instructions<br />

from Storage<br />

Figure 2-11 PowerPC with VMX logical processing model<br />

<strong>The</strong> VXU operates on vectors that are a total of 128-bits long. <strong>The</strong>se can be<br />

interpreted by the VXU as either:<br />

► A vector of sixteen 8-bit bytes<br />

► A vector of eight 16-bit half words<br />

► A vector of four 32-bit words<br />

40 <strong>The</strong> <strong>IBM</strong> Eserver <strong>BladeCenter</strong> <strong>JS20</strong><br />

Branch<br />

Processing<br />

(BPU)<br />

Floating-Point<br />

Instructions<br />

Floating-<br />

Point<br />

Processing<br />

(FPU)<br />

Storage<br />

Data to/from<br />

Storage<br />

Vector<br />

Processing<br />

(VXU)<br />

Vector<br />

Instructions

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