Gekko is a superscalar out-of-order

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 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calcula ...

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– IBM ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

custom-made by IBM in 2000 for Nintendo to use as the

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

in their sixth generation game console, the

GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the W ...

, and later the Triforce Arcade Board.

Development

Gekko's role in the game system was to facilitate game scripting,

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

, physics and collision detection, custom graphics lighting effects and geometry such as smooth transformations, and moving graphics data through the system. The project was announced in 1999 when IBM and Nintendo agreed to a dollar contract (IBM's largest ever single order) for a CPU running at approximately 400 MHz. IBM chose to modify their existing

PowerPC 750CXe The PowerPC 7xx is a family of third generation 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors designed and manufactured by IBM and Motorola (spun off as Freescale Semiconductor bought by NXP Semiconductors). This family is called the PowerPC G3 by its well-kno ...

processor to suit Nintendo's needs, such as tight and balanced operation alongside the "Flipper" graphics processor. The customization was to the bus architecture,

DMA DMA may refer to: Arts * ''DMA'' (magazine), a defunct dance music magazine * Dallas Museum of Art, an art museum in Texas, US * Danish Music Awards, an award show held in Denmark * BT Digital Music Awards, an annual event in the UK * Doctor of M ...

, compression and floating point unit which support a special set of SIMD instructions. The CPU made ground work for custom lighting and geometry effects and could burst compressed data directly to the GPU. The Gekko is considered to be the direct ancestor to 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 Stree ...

processor, also designed and manufactured by IBM, that powers the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...

console.

Features

* Customized

core * Clockrate – 486

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one h ...

Superscalar A superscalar 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 instruction per clock cycle, a sup ...

Out-of-order execution * 4 stages long two-integer

ALU ALU, Alu or alu may refer to: Computing and science ;Computing *Arithmetic logic unit, a digital electronic circuit ;Biology * Alu sequence, a type of short stretch of DNA *'' Arthrobacter luteus'', a bacterium Organizations * Abraham Lincoln ...

s (IU1 and IU2) – 32 bit * 7 stages long Floating Point Unit – 64-bit double-precision FPU, usable as 2 × 32-bit

SIMD Single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) is a type of parallel processing in Flynn's taxonomy. SIMD can be internal (part of the hardware design) and it can be directly accessible through an instruction set architecture (ISA), but it should ...

for 1.9 single-precision

GFLOPS In computing, floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate mea ...

performance using the

Multiply–accumulate operation In computing, especially digital signal processing, the multiply–accumulate (MAC) or multiply-add (MAD) operation is a common step that computes the product of two numbers and adds that product to an accumulator. The hardware unit that performs ...

. The SIMD is often found under the denomination "paired singles." * Branch Prediction Unit (BPU) * Load-Store Unit (LSU) * System Register Unit (SRU) * Memory Management Unit (MMU) * Branch Target Instruction Cache (BTIC) * SIMD Instructions – PowerPC750 + roughly 50 new

instructions, geared toward

3D graphics 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...

* Front-side Bus – 64-bit enhanced 60x bus to

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mob ...

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components in one or more integrated circuits known as a "Data Flow Management System" that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. It is usually found on t ...

at 162 MHz clock with 1.3 GB/s peak bandwidth * On-chip Cache – 64 KB 8-way

associative In mathematics, the associative property is a property of some binary operations, which means that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result. In propositional logic, associativity is a valid rule of replacement ...

L1 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, whic ...

(32/32 KB instruction/data). 256 KB on-die, 2-way associative L2 cache * DMIPS – 1125 ( dhrystone 2.1) * 180 nm IBM six-layer, copper-wire process. 43 mm² die * 1.8 V for logic and I/O. 4.9 W dissipation * 27 × 27 mm

PBGA A ball grid array (BGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging (a chip carrier) used for integrated circuits. BGA packages are used to permanently mount devices such as microprocessors. A BGA can provide more interconnection pins than can be put ...

package with 256 contacts * 6.35 million logic transistors and 18.6 million transistors total

References

IBM, Nintendo Announce $1 Billion Technology AgreementA PowerPC compatible processor supporting high-performance 3-D graphics
{{Nintendo hardware GameCube IBM microprocessors Nintendo chips PowerPC implementations

Development

Features

See also

References