The PCM-1 processor has an innovative computer architecture for the fast execution of functional programming languages by graph reduction. Expected performance is about 50 Mips (internally) realizing 0.5 million reductions/s. RISC principles have influenced the processor design. This paper analyses significant architectural decisions made in the PCM-1 and show how is RISC-like design achieves high performance. The application of RISC principles to a machine not designed for procedural programming are discussed, including the instruction sequencing, accommodation of slow operations such as addition, the substitution of software analysis for hardware, a cache on the chip, and matching of the register file and control store cycles.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Information and Computing Sciences
Research Group:	Distributed computing and systems software
Research Field:	Energy-efficient computing
Objective Division:	Information and Communication Services
Objective Group:	Other information and communication services
Objective Field:	Other information and communication services not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Sale, AHJ (Professor Arthur Sale)
ID Code:	34323
Year Published:	1991
Deposited By:	Computing
Deposited On:	2005-07-27
Last Modified:	2005-07-27
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