Talk:Barrel processor

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The Ubicom 3k supports 8 threads, not 64. It supports 64 scheduling slots, which is a different thing.

Ooops, you're right. I didn't read carefully enough the first time. --DavidCary 07:53, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Question time

Ideas for further information:

  • When did these barrel processors first come out?
  • How mainstream were they?
  • What influenced their design?
  • What other designs did they influence?
  • If there are less total threads than the number that the barrel processor was built to deal with, what happens then?
  • If there are more total threads than the number that the barrel processor was built to deal with, what happens then?

Ed Sanville 22:40, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] during a stall

The article currently claims

In addition, if there are insufficient threads available to run, a barrel processor may not have anything useful to do during a stall.

This may be true, but isn't it also true for every other kind of processor? Is there any kind of processor that doesn't have this "problem"? --DavidCary 05:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

What should be done about this then? 218.102.220.129 13:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tera

"Cray T90 vs. Tera MTA: The Old Champ Faces a New Challenger" http://www.cs.ucsd.edu/users/carter/Papers/cug.html mentions that "The MTA keeps the context of up to 128 threads in hardware called streams ready to execute on the processor. It can switch context each cycle and so keeps the processor saturated. If one thread cannot execute (due, say, to an outstanding memory reference), then an instruction from a different ready thread is issued. Each thread can issue only once in 21 cycles. This means that a minimum of 21 threads is required to keep the processor saturated."

Is this a kind of barrel processor, since it takes such a long time after a thread executes one instruction before it's turn "rolls around" to execute the next 2 consecutive instruction? Or is this more like hyperthreading?

--70.189.75.148 05:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Registry space?

All the threads must share cache and registry space

Maybe I'm completely misreading this part, but "registry space" seems to have no relevance in context whatsoever, and linking it to "Windows registry" is just stupid. Could this be something to do with registers? I can't think what. De-linking for now.

Fair point to be made, but I am not sure what constructive outcome is to be achieved by casting aspersions. The article was unwikified for quite some time; I took the time to complete the wikification effort, and am unimpressed by your uncouth behaviour. Until you can make a valid point for why it should be de-linked, I will have to leave the link in place. Folajimi 12:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
You're the one with uncouth behaviour. You obviously know nothing about the subject. Glad that anonymous users have some sense and not always vandals. 218.102.220.129 13:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
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