The Rise mP6 was a

superpipelined In computer engineering, instruction pipelining is a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. Pipelining attempts to keep every part of the processor busy with some instruction by dividing incoming in ...

and

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 ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Pentium Pentium is a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel from 1993 to 2023. The Pentium (original), original Pentium was Intel's fifth generation processor, succeeding the i486; Pentium was Intel's flagship proce ...

line.

History

Rise Technology had spent 5 years developing a

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

compatible

, and finally introduced it in November 1998 as a low-cost, low-power alternative for the

Super Socket 7 Super Socket 7, also referred to as Super 7, is a hardware-level extension of the Socket 7 Zero insertion force, ZIF socket specification for x86 processors. It was released in May 1998. Compatible motherboards and chipsets use a standard Socket 7 ...

platform, that allowed for higher

Front-side bus The front-side bus (FSB) is a computer communication interface ( bus) that was often used in Intel-chip-based computers during the 1990s and 2000s. The EV6 bus served the same function for competing AMD CPUs. Both typically carry data between th ...

speeds than the previous

Socket 7 Socket 7 is a physical and electrical specification for an x86-style CPU socket on a personal computer motherboard. It was released in June 1995. The socket supersedes the earlier Socket 5, and accepts P5 Pentium microprocessors manufactured by ...

and that made it possible for other CPU manufacturers to keep competing against

, that had moved to the

Slot 1 Slot 1 refers to the physical and electrical specification for the connector used by some of Intel's microprocessors, including the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II and the Pentium III. Both single and dual processor configurations were impl ...

platform.

Design

The mP6 made use of the MMX instruction set and had three MMX pipelines which allowed the CPU to execute up to three MMX instructions in a single cycle. Its three integer units made it possible to execute three integer instructions in a single cycle as well and the fully pipelined floating point unit could execute up to two floating-point instructions per cycle. To further improve the performance the core utilized

branch prediction In computer architecture, a branch predictor is a digital circuit that tries to guess which way a branch (e.g., an if–then–else structure) will go before this is known definitively. The purpose of the branch predictor is to improve the flow ...

and a number of techniques to resolve

data dependency A data dependency in computer science is a situation in which a program statement (instruction) refers to the data of a preceding statement. In compiler theory, the technique used to discover data dependencies among statements (or instructions) i ...

conflicts. According to Rise, the mP6 should perform almost as fast as Intel Pentium II at the same frequencies.

Performance

Despite its innovative features, the real-life performance of the mP6 proved disappointing. This was mainly due to the small L1 Cache. Another reason was that the Rise mP6's PR 266 rating was based upon the old Intel Pentium MMX, while its main competitors were the Intel Celeron 266, the IDT WinChip 2-266 and the AMD K6-2 266, that all delivered more performance in most benchmarks and applications. The Celeron and the K6-2 actually worked at 266 MHz, and the WinChip 2's PR rating was based upon the performance of its AMD opponent.

Use

Announced in 1998, the chip never achieved widespread use, and Rise quietly exited the market in December of the following year. Like competitors

Cyrix Cyrix Corporation was a microprocessor developer that was founded in 1988 in Richardson, Texas, as a specialist supplier of floating point units for 286 and 386 microprocessors. The company was founded by Tom Brightman and Jerry Rogers. Ter ...

and IDT, Rise found it was unable to compete with

and

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 ...

Legacy

Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) licensed the mP6 technology, and used it in the SiS 550, a

system-on-a-chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with memory, input/output, and dat ...

(SoC) that integrated the mP6 CPU, the north and south bridges, and sound and video on a single chip. The SiS 550 saw use in some compact PCs and in consumer devices, such as

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

players. The SiS 551 chip was also marketed by DM&P as Vortex86 (M6127D). Later DM&P took over mP6 design from SiS and continues development under Vortex86 SoC product line. DM&P further signed an agreement with Xcore to allow them to rebrand the chip as Xcore86.Xcore Corporation Ltd. has entered into an agreement with DMP Electronics Inc.

mP6 data

References

{{reflist

External links

CPU-INFO: Rise MP6, indepth processor history

The Rise of the Vortex86: Embedded x86 Processors
Computer-related introductions in 1998 Superscalar microprocessors Rise