PowerPC G4
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PowerPC G4 is a designation formerly used by Apple to describe a fourth generation of 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors. Apple has applied this name to various (though closely related) processor models from Freescale, a former part of Motorola. Motorola and Freescale's proper name of this family of processors is PowerPC 74xx.
Apple completely phased out the G4 series for desktop models after it selected the 64-bit IBM-produced PowerPC 970 processor as the basis for its PowerPC G5 series. The last desktop model that used the G4 was the Mac Mini. The last portable to use the G4 was the iBook G4, which was replaced by the Intel-based MacBook. The PowerBook G4 was replaced by the Intel-based MacBook Pro.
The PowerPC G4 processors are also popular in other computer systems, such as the AmigaOne series of computers and the Pegasos from Genesi. Besides desktop computers the PowerPC G4 is popular in embedded environments, like routers, telecom switches, imaging, media processing, avionics and military applications, where one can take advantage of the AltiVec and its SMP capabilities.
PowerPC 7400
The PowerPC 7400 (code-named "Max") debuted in August 1999 and was the first processor to carry the "G4" moniker. The chip operates at speeds ranging from 350 to 500
Motorola had promised Apple to deliver parts with speed up to 500 MHz, but
Design
Much of the 7400 design was done by Motorola in close co-operation with Apple and IBM. IBM, the third member of the AIM alliance, designed the chip together with Motorola in its Somerset design center, but chose not to manufacture it, because it did not see the need back then for the Vector Processing Unit. Ultimately, the G4 architecture design contained a 128-bit vector processing unit labelled AltiVec by Motorola while Apple marketing referred to it as the "Velocity Engine".
The
With the AltiVec unit, the 7400 microprocessor can do four-way single precision (32-bit) floating point math, or 16-way 8-bit, 8-way 16-bit or four-way 32-bit integer math in a single cycle. Furthermore, the vector processing unit is
Additionally, the 7400 has enhanced support for
The PowerPC G4 family supports two bus technologies, the older
PowerPC 7410
The PowerPC 7410 "Nitro" is a low-power version of the 7400 but it was manufactured at 180 nm instead of 200 nm. Like the 7400 it has 10.5 million transistors. It debuted in the PowerBook G4 on 9 January 2001.
The chip added the ability to use all or half of its cache as high-speed, non-cached memory mapped to the processor's physical address space as desired. This feature was used by
PowerPC 7450
The PowerPC 7450 "Voyager"/"V'ger" was the only major redesign of the G4 processor. The 33-million transistor chip extended significantly the execution pipeline of 7400 (7 vs. 4 stages minimum) to reach higher clock speeds, improved instruction throughput (3 + branch vs. 2 + branch per cycle) to compensate for higher instruction latency, replaced an external L2 cache (up to 2 MB 2-way set associative, 64-bit data path) with an integrated one (256 KB 8-way set associative, 256-bit data path), supported an external L3 cache (up to 2 MB 8-way set associative, 64-bit data path), and featured many other architectural advancements. The AltiVec unit was improved with the 7450; instead of executing one vector permute instruction and one vector ALU (simple int, complex int, float) instruction per cycle like 7400/7410, the 7450 and its Motorola/Freescale-followers can execute two arbitrary vector instructions simultaneously (permute, simple int, complex int, float). It was introduced with the 733 MHz Power Mac G4 on 9 January 2001. Motorola followed with an interim release, the 7451, codenamed "Apollo 6", just like the 7455. Early AmigaOne XE computers were shipped with the 7451 processor.
The enhancements to the 745x design gave it the nicknames G4e or G4+ but these were never official designations.
PowerPC 7445 and 7455
The PowerPC 7455 "Apollo 6" was introduced in January 2002. It came with a wider, 256-bit on-chip cache path, and was fabricated in Motorola's 0.18 μm (180 nm) HiPerMOS process with copper interconnects and SOI. It was the first processor in an Apple computer to pass the 1 GHz mark. The 7445 is the same chip without the L3 cache interface. The 7455 is used in the AmigaOne XE G4, and the dual 1 GHz Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver 2002)
PowerPC 7447 and 7457
The PowerPC 7447 "Apollo 7" is slightly improved from the 7450/55, it has a 512 KB on-chip L2 cache and was manufactured in a
The only companies that offer the 7457 in the form of upgrades for the Power Mac G4, iMac G4, and Power Mac G4 Cube are Giga Designs, Sonnet Technology, Daystar Technology (they use the 7457 only for iMac G4 upgrades) and PowerLogix. The Pegasos computer platform from Genesi also uses 7447 in its Pegasos-II/G4.
The 7457 is often used to repair an AmigaOne XE CPU module;[4][5][6][7] some AmigaOS software with the 7457 installed may mistake the AmigaOne for a Pegasos II computer as there were never any official 7457 boards released by Eyetech.
PowerPC 7448
The PowerPC 7448 "Apollo 8" is an evolution of the PowerPC 7447B announced at the first Freescale Technology Forum in June 2005. Improvements were a larger 1 MB L2 cache, a faster 200 MHz front side bus, and lower power consumption (18 W at 1.7 GHz). It was fabricated in a 90 nm process with copper interconnects and SOI.
PowerPC 7448 users were:
- Daystar for their High-Res Aluminum PowerBook G4 upgrades (Daystar's Low-Res Aluminum PowerBook G4 upgrades used the 7447A, not the 7448)
- NewerTech for their Power Mac G4 upgrades
- PowerLogix for their Power Mac G4 Cube upgrade
- Cisco in NPE-G2 network processor module for their 7200VXR routers [8]
- Cisco 7201 Router [9]
- Extreme Engineering Solutions for their XPedite6244 single board computer [10]
- Aitech for their C104 CompactPCI single board computer [11]
- Emerson Network Power for their PmPPC7448 PMC module [12]
e600
In 2004, Freescale renamed the G4 core to e600 and changed its focus from general CPUs to high-end embedded
Device list
This list is a complete list of known G4 based designs (excluding newer core e600 designs). The pictures are illustrations and not to scale.
See also
- List of Macintosh models grouped by CPU type
References
- ^ "Motorola and IBM Reveal PowerPC Plans".
- ^ FREESCALE PRODUCT BULLETIN 11161
- ^ MC7447A/B/C Microprocessor MOS-13 HiP7SOI 41 - L25S / 42 - L25S / 53 – L25S / 55 – L25S / 58 – L25S Qualification Report
- ^ "IntuitionBase - Your Guide To AmigaOS4.x And The AmigaOne". www.intuitionbase.com.
- ^ "AmigaOne XE, manual cites incorrect vCore?? [Forums - AmigaOS4] - The Amigans website". www.amigans.net.
- ^ "ACube Systems new corporate website" (Press release). Bassano del Grappa, Italy: ACube. February 24, 2007. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
- ^ "ACube Systems: Company web page". Amiga-News.de. February 25, 2007. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
- ^ "Network Processing Engine and Network Services Engine Installation and Configuration - NPE-G2 Overview [Cisco 7200 Series Routers]". Cisco.
- ^ "Cisco 7201 Router". Cisco.
- ^ "XPedite6244 | NXP MPC7448 AMC Module".
- ^ "C104 PowerPC® MPC7448 CompactPCI SBC | Aitech Rugged COTS Solutions". www.rugged.com. Archived from the original on 2016-07-31.
- ^ http://static6.arrow.com/aropdfconversion/ad4aa5d5f0e38c4028118cabe7ce2d17a41e7530/pmppc7448%20ds.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- Diefendorff, Keith (25 October 1999). "PowerPC G4 Gains Velocity". Microprocessor Report. pp. 10–15.
- Gwennap, Linley (16 November 1998). "G4 Is First PowerPC With AltiVec". Microprocessor Report.
- Halfhill, Tom R. (5 July 2005). "PowerPC Ain't Dead Yet". Microprocessor Report. pp. 13–15.