2 the hardware main components, 1 the processor subsystem – IBM RS/6000 User Manual

Page 39

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The solution to the problem is to use the PCI local bus as the primary system bus
and the ISA bus as an expansion bus. This way, the system can take advantage
of the high-speed data transfer provided by the PCI bus when communicating with
the processor and memory. On the other side, through the PCI-ISA Bridge, the bus
clock can be reduced to match the ISA bus requirements.

Table 1. PowerPC and Bus Specification

Specification

PowerPC

PCI

ISA(8)

ISA(16)

EISA

Processor Speed
(601-604)

66-132

-

-

-

-

Databus

64

64

8

16

16/32

Address Bus

32

64

20

24

24/32

Bus Clock

66 MHz

33 MHz

4.7 MHz

8.3 MHz

8.3 MHZ

Interrupts

-

4

6

11

11

DMA Channel

-

busmaster

3

7

7

2.2 The Hardware Main Components

The PCI-based RS/6000 servers include the following main hardware components:

Processor Subsystem

L2 Cache

Memory Controller and PCI Bridge

System Memory

Primary PCI Bus

Secondary PCI Bus

EISA Bus

X-bus

No Power Management Controller

Note that the currently available PCI-based RS/6000 servers (E20 and F30) do
not include a power-management controller.

2.2.1 The Processor Subsystem

The PCI-based RS/6000 servers feature the PowerPC 604 microprocessor. The
superscalar multiprocessor-enabled chip issues up to four instructions in parallel
every clock cycle. Its three-stage, double-precision floating point unit provides
tremendous performance capabilities that were previously available only through
expensive add-on hardware.

Figure 6 on page 16 shows the PowerPC 604 microprocessor architecture which is
defined by the following specifications:

PowerPC 604 microprocessor running at:

– 100 MHz on RS/6000 Model E20

– 133 MHz on RS/6000 Model F30

Chapter 2. PCI-Based RS/6000 Server Hardware

15

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