Espresso is the codename of the

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in a maximum of 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform la ...

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary Processor (computing), processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes Instruction (computing), instructions ...

(CPU) used in

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. The W ...

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

. It was designed by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, and was produced using a

45 nm Per the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, the 45 nm process is a MOSFET technology node referring to the average half-pitch of a memory cell manufactured at around the 2007–2008 time frame. Matsushita and Intel started mas ...

silicon-on-insulator In semiconductor manufacturing, silicon on insulator (SOI) technology is fabrication of silicon semiconductor devices in a layered silicon–insulator–silicon substrate (materials science), substrate, to reduce parasitic capacitance within the d ...

process. The Espresso chip resides together with a

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

from

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

on an MCM manufactured by

Renesas is a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo. The name "Renesas" is a contraction of "Renaissance Semiconductor for Advanced Solutions." The company was established in 2002 as Renesas Technology through the merger of the semi ...

. It was revealed at

E3 2011 The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 (E3 2011) was the 17th E3 held. The event took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. It began on June 7, 2011, and ended on June 9, 2011, with 46,800 total attendees. E3 20 ...

in June 2011 and released in November 2012.

Design

IBM and Nintendo have revealed that the Espresso processor is a

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

-based microprocessor with three cores on a single chip to reduce power consumption and increase speed. The CPU and the graphics processor are placed on a single substrate as a

multi-chip module A multi-chip module (MCM) is generically an electronic assembly (such as a package with a number of conductor terminals or Lead (electronics), "pins") where multiple integrated circuits (ICs or "chips"), semiconductor Die (integrated circuit), d ...

(MCM) to reduce complexity, increase the communication speed between the chips, further reduce power consumption, and reduce cost and space required. The two chips were assembled to the complete MCM by Renesas in Japan. Espresso itself was manufactured by IBM in its 300 mm plant in

East Fishkill, New York East Fishkill is a Town (New York), town on the southern border of Dutchess County, New York, Dutchess County, New York (state), New York, United States. The population was 29,707 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Until its creation i ...

, using

SOI In Thailand, a ''soi'' ( ) is a side street that branches off of a major street (''thanon'', ). An alley is called a ''trok'' (). Overview Sois are usually numbered, and are referred to by the name of the major street and the number, as in "S ...

-technology and

embedded DRAM Embedded DRAM (eDRAM) is dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) integrated on the same die or multi-chip module (MCM) of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or microprocessor. eDRAM's cost-per-bit is higher when compared to equivale ...

(eDRAM) for caches. While unverified by Nintendo,

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...

s, teardowns, and unofficial informants have since revealed more information about the Espresso, such as its name, size and speed. The microarchitecture seems to be quite similar to its predecessors the

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

and

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, i.e. PowerPC 750 based, but enhanced with larger and faster caches and

multiprocessor Multiprocessing (MP) is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. The ...

support. Rumors that the Wii U CPU was derived from IBM's high-end

POWER7 POWER7 is a family of superscalar multi-core microprocessors based on the Power ISA 2.06 instruction set architecture released in 2010 that succeeded the POWER6 and POWER6+. POWER7 was developed by IBM at several sites including IBM's Rochest ...

server processor proved false, as it would potentially increase the manufacturing and retail cost of the system, and require a larger form factor. Espresso shares some technology with POWER7, such as eDRAM and general instruction set similarities, but those are superficial similarities.

Specifications

Out-of-order execution In computer engineering, out-of-order execution (or more formally dynamic execution) is an instruction scheduling paradigm used in high-performance central processing units to make use of instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted. In t ...

based cores * 45 nanometer process technology * IBM

silicon on insulator In semiconductor manufacturing, silicon on insulator (SOI) technology is fabrication of silicon semiconductor devices in a layered silicon–insulator–silicon substrate, to reduce parasitic capacitance within the device, thereby improving perf ...

(SOI) technology * Backward compatible with the

and

processors The following specifications ''have not been officially confirmed'' by either

. They have been obtained by

reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...

by hacker Hector Martin, alias marcan. *

-based core architecture *Three cores at 1.243125

GHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...

Symmetric multiprocessing Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all ...

with

MESI The MESI protocol is an invalidate-based cache coherence protocol, and is one of the most common protocols that support write-back caches. It is also known as the Illinois protocol due to its development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Ch ...

/ MERSI support *Each core can output up to 4 instructions per clock using

superscalar A superscalar processor (or multiple-issue processor) is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. In contrast to a scalar processor, which can execute at most one single in ...

parallelism. *32-bit integer unit *64-bit floating-point (or 2× 32-bit SIMD, often found under the denomination "paired singles") *A total of 3 MB of

Level 2 cache A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, which ...

in an unusual configuration. **Core 0: 512 KB, core 1: 2 MB, core 2: 512 KB *4 stage pipeline *7 stage pipeline - FP *6 Execution Units per core (18 EUs total) *Die size: 4.74 mm × 5.85 mm = 27.73 mm²

Design

Specifications

References

Further reading