Re: tech snippets

Ray Peck (rpeck@PureAtria.COM)
Sat, 28 Dec 1996 21:41:25 -0800 (PST)


Dejan Vucinic writes:
>Taking this yet another step further:
>Over the last fifteen years all major CPU makers have migrated from
>a monolithic design to microcode.

This is incorrect. AFAIK, at least most RISC CPUs have hardwired
control. I haven't done CPU design in 5 years (that CPU is now
available at your local Target store running a Sony Playstation), but
ours and all of MIPS' through the R4000 were hardwired. As were the
SPARC chips of the time (those even used automatic place-and-route for
the datapath: ugh!).