The MC88110 was a

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 ...

developed by

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

that implemented the

88000 The 88000 (m88k for short) is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Motorola during the 1980s. The MC88100 arrived on the market in 1988, some two years after the competing SPARC and MIPS. Due to the late start and extensive delays re ...

instruction set architecture In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...

(ISA). The MC88110 was a second-generation implementation of the 88000 ISA, succeeding the

MC88100 The MC88100 is a microprocessor developed by Motorola that implemented 88000 RISC instruction set architecture. Announced in 1988, the MC88100 was the first 88000 implementation. It was succeeded by the MC88110 in the early 1990s. The micropro ...

. It was designed for use in

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

s and

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

History

The first technical description of the MC88110 was given in November 1991 at the Microprocessor Forum held in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The microprocessor was introduced in 1992, operating at 50 MHz. Users were

Data General Data General Corporation was one of the first minicomputer firms of the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Their first product, 1969's Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer ...

in their

AViiON Aviion (styled AViiON) was a series of computers from Data General that were the company's main product from the late 1980s until the company's server products were discontinued in 2001. Earlier Aviion models used the Motorola 88000 CPU, but later ...

servers,

Harris Harris may refer to: Places Canada * Harris, Ontario * Northland Pyrite Mine (also known as Harris Mine) * Harris, Saskatchewan * Rural Municipality of Harris No. 316, Saskatchewan Scotland * Harris, Outer Hebrides (sometimes called the Isle o ...

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

UNIX systems and Motorola in their

single-board computers A single-board computer (SBC) is a complete computer built on a single circuit board, with microprocessor(s), memory, input/output (I/O) and other features required of a functional computer. Single-board computers are commonly made as demonstrat ...

NeXT Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

was to introduce a workstation using the MC88110, the

NeXT RISC Workstation Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

, but they left the hardware business and cancelled the product before development had completed.

Description

It implemented extensions to the original ISA, such a separate floating-point register file, extended-precision (80-bit) floating-point data types and new integer and graphics instructions. It also implemented microarchitectural features previously non-existent in 88000 microprocessors, such as two-way

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 ...

execution, out-of-order completion and

speculative execution Speculative execution is an optimization technique where a computer system performs some task that may not be needed. Work is done before it is known whether it is actually needed, so as to prevent a delay that would have to be incurred by doing t ...

. Despite these new features, which corrected some architectural deficiencies in the MC88100, the MC88110 was ultimately unsuccessful and was used in few systems. The MC88110 was succeeded by

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 ...

microprocessors Motorola developed jointly with IBM as part of the

AIM alliance The AIM alliance, also known as the PowerPC alliance, was formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple, IBM, and Motorola. Its goal was to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the POWER instruction set architecture. It ...

, but remained available until the mid-1990s. The MC88110 supported an optional external 256 KB to 2 MB secondary cache. The secondary cache controller was not integrated on the MC88110, but was located on a separate device, the MC88410, to reduce cost. The

die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...

contained 1.3 million transistors and measured 15 mm by 15 mm (225 mm²). It was fabricated in a 1 µm

complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...

(CMOS) process. The process has three levels of

aluminium interconnect In integrated circuits (ICs), interconnects are structures that connect two or more circuit elements (such as transistors) together electrically. The design and layout of interconnects on an IC is vital to its proper function, performance, power ef ...

and an effective channel length (the distance between the source and drain contacts of the

MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...

transistors) of 0.8 µm. The MC88110 was designed to be shrunk to a 0.8 µm process with an effective channel length of 0.65 µm without modification.

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mc88110 Motorola microprocessors

Motorola 88110 The MC88110 was a microprocessor developed by Motorola that implemented the 88000 instruction set architecture (ISA). The MC88110 was a second-generation implementation of the 88000 ISA, succeeding the MC88100. It was designed for use in personal ...