CRISP: A Pipelined 32b Microprocessor with 13kb of Cache Memory

High performance microprocessor design requires careful tradeoffs with the instruction et, compiler technology, hardware architecture and layout of the implementation. These tradeoffs have been studied since 1975 at Bell Laboratories in the design of a series of "C Machines", machines that efficiently support the execution of the C programming language and the Unix operating system. The design of these machines consisted of proposing a machine, writing a compiler for the machine, and using simulators to generate measurements for evaluation. These measurements were then used to make new tradeoffs and propose a new machine to repeat the cycle. This paper describes implementation of the latest C Machine, a 32b single chip microprocessor called CRISP.