RS/6000 RISC Chipset

The IBM RS/6000 processor: Hardware Overview
Pseudorandom BIST methodology and implementation for IBM RS/6000 processor


CPU (RIOS 1.0 - 10 Chips)  



Cost Reduced CPU (RIOS .9 - 8 Chip) 

Cost-Reduced CPU (RIOS .9 / 8 Chip) 
One of the goals of this design was to use a common chip set to produce a family of processors with varying cost and performance. This was accomplished by designing the FXU, DCU, and SCU in such a way that they can operate with two DCUs as well as with four. This system configuration is illustrated in Figure 4. Because the chips are common to the two versions, they can be sorted so that faster chips are used in the high end and slower ones in the entry-level configurations. In this way, sorting for high speed is achieved without sacrificing the overall yield.

This configuration has a lower cost for two reasons. First, it has only two data-cache chips rather than four. Second, it requires a minimum of one memory card rather than two. (This is because two DCU in the cost reduced CPU have a two-word memory interface
compared to four DCUs in the full CPU, which have a four-word interface. Consequently, some of the bit-scattering features described for the full-size CPU do not apply to the cost-reduced CPU.) To accommodate the smaller cache size and narrower memory bus width, the D-cache line size is reduced to 64 bytes. In the cost reduced CPU, fixed- and floating-point data buses are dotted together. In addition, the DCU sends the data to reload the I-cache over the SIO bus rather than having a dedicated I-cache reload bus to the ICU.

Memory Cards

RISC System/6000 memory cards implement a four-way interleaved design in order to provide two words of data every machine cycle from each memory card. A minimum of two memory cards is required to support the four-word memory bus to the CPU (Figure 1).

The interleaving is performed by two data-multiplexing chips (D) and one control chip (R) on the memory cards. The memory cards accept generic read/write instructions and generate the required read/write, refresh, and page-mode read/write signals for a variety of DRAMs. The memory cards can buffer up to four instructions and 16 words of write data. Using standard modular SIMM packages for the DRAMs provides flexibility in memory capacity and cost. RS/6000 memory cards can support both 1-megabit and 4-megabit DRAMs. The SIMMs are 1, 2, or 4 MBs. There are eight SIMM sockets per memory card, yielding 8-, 16-, or 32-Mbyte memory cards. A system can have 2 to 8 memory cards providing 16 MBs to 256 MBs of total memory. With the 4-Mbit DRAM technology, the memory card capability can be increased to 64 MBs, and the total memory capability can be increased to 0.5 GBs. Bit scattering is implemented to guarantee that no more than one bit of a 40-bit ECC word is stored in an individual DRAM. Accordingly, the bit-steering circuitry in the DCU can detect and correct errors caused by a single bad by-four DRAM chip and still have additional error protection due to ECC.


Chipset Work
  RIOS 1.0

FP - Floating Point Unit (FPU)
FX - Fixed Point Unit (FXU)
D - Data Cache Unit (DCU)
I - Instruction Cache Unit (ICU)
S - Storage Control Unit (SCU)
C - Input / Output Unit (IOU)
CLK - Clock
TCW - Translation Control Words (TCW) buffer
OCS - On-Card Sequencer (OCS)
ROS -
IPL -

This is a RIOS 1.0 version CPU planar. This planar supports a 4 memory card system, so it has 4ea DCU.

Note that the left (out-board) IOU (marked C *) may either be totally missing (just solder pads), a empty socket, a socketed IOU chip, or a soldered-in IOU chip. Normally, if there is no socket or chip in C * position, the top most SOCC slot is not installed (solder pads for SOCC slot only).

Chipset Work  RIOS 0.9


FP - Floating Point Unit (FPU)
FX - Fixed Point Unit (FXU)
D -  Data Cache Unit (DCU)
I - Instruction Cache Unit (ICU)
S - Storage Control Unit (SCU)
C - Input / Output Unit (IOU)
CLK - Clock
TCW - Translation Control Words (TCW) buffer
OCS - On-Card Sequencer (OCS)
ROS -
IPL -

This is a RIOS 0.9 version CPU planar. This planar supports a 2 memory card system, so it has 2ea DCU.

Note that the left (out-board) IOU is totally missing (just solder pads). The top most SOCC slot is not installed (solder pads for SOCC slot only).

Just to show the bare truth, different FRUs may be quite different...

7012-340 CPU Planar ID 37 (33 POWER) 43G0716, 00G3149 dated 9231



U1 43G0949 uCode
U2 63F7695 CLK
U3 51F1712 SCU
U4,5 51F6832 (DCUs)
U6 63F8963 IOU
U7-11 65X5504 Metal cubes - TCW
U14 43G0955 IPL?
U15 51F2830  ICU
U16 63F9139 FXU
U17 63F7764 FPU
U18 32G2336 OCS ? 8051 size

U20, 13 ROS?

7012-340 CPU Planar ID 37 (33 POWER)  52G4314, 52G4190 dated 9317


U1 65G7461 uCode
U2 63F7695 CLK
U3 33G0564 SCU
U4,5 33G5673 (DCUs)
U6 63F8963 IOU
U7-11 65X5504 Metal cubes - TCW
U14 52G4315 IPL?
U15 50G5736  ICU
U16 50G5730 FXU
U17 50G5733 FPU
U18 32G2336 OCS ? 8051 size

U20, 13 ROS?

Storage Control Unit (SCU) 
   The SCU is the central system controller [9]. All of the communication between CPU (ICU, FXU, DCU), main memory, and I/O is arbitrated by the SCU. The CPU sends I-cache reload, D-cache reload and D-cache storeback requests to the SCU over the PBUS, and the SCU generates the appropriate memory-control signals. The SCU is the bus master for the memory and SIO buses. It controls the interface between D-cache and system memory, and oversees DMA operations between main memory and the I/O unit. The SCU provides a data path for I/O loads and stores between the CPU and I/O unit via the PBUS and SIO bus. The SCU also forms an interface to the IPL ROS. Memory scrubbing is controlled by the SCU, and memory errors detected by the DCU are recorded by the SCU. The SCU contains the bank configuration registers, which indicate the size and starting point of each bank of storage in system memory.

I/O Unit (IOU)
The I/O unit contains an I/O channel controller (IOCC) and two serial link adapters (SLAs). The IOCC generates a Micro Channel interface, and the SLAs provide an interface to optics cards that drive fiber-optic links. Support for this high-speed optical link is planned for a future release. The data interface between CPU/system memory and the I/O unit is via the two-word SIO bus. Micro Channel has a one-word address bus and a one word data bus. Data transmission between an SLA and the optics cards are via one-byte interfaces.

The IOCC supports an I/O architecture geared for performance, robustness, and error recoverability [11]. The main function of the IOCC is to transfer data between system memory and adapters on the Micro Channel. The CPU can transfer data to/from adapters
using I/O load and store operations, and adapters can transfer data to/from system memory using DMA. The IOCC supports both DMA bus masters and DMA slaves. All data transfers support address-protection mechanisms to provide data security. Up to 15 DMA channels and 16 levels of interrupts are supported by the IOCC. The Micro Channel Architecture features include streaming data, address and data parity, and synchronous exception reporting (I/O loads/stores cause precise interrupts like regular loads/stores) [12]. With the new streaming-data mode, multiple data packets can be transferred within one bus envelope. This is accomplished by sending a starting address and then transferring a block of data consisting of multiple consecutive data packets. This is in contrast to the regular mode, where an address is required for every data transfer. This amortizes device selection overhead across the entire packet and nearly doubles the performance for large data bursts [12]. Precise I/O load/store interrupts improve error recoverability.

The SLA implements the serial I/O architecture, which supports point-to-point connections where two RS/6000 machines communicate with each other via optical fibers [13]. The SLA receives the data from the CPU, puts it into 10-bit packets, and transmits the packets to the optics card. The optics card serializes the data and feeds it to a fiber-optic link. The SLA also supports I/O loads/stores to/from the CPU. Each SLA contains two 256-byte data buffers to transfer data between the SIO bus and the optics card, and one 16-word tag table to provide pointers to a system-memory buffer for DMA operations.

Serial Optical Channel Converter (SOCC)
All deskside and larger IBM RISC System/6000 computers have at least one SOCC slot. That is to say, the RISC system models 220 and 300 series have no optical slots, the deskside 500 series has one optical channel slot, and the 900 rack series two. Because of the speed of this interface it is necessary to locate optical slots on the CPU planar rather than on the I/O planar where MicroChannel slots are located. This design also ensures that large amounts of optical network traffic do not swamp the bandwidth of the MicroChannel I/O bus. Into each slot plugs an SOCC card. Each card has four unidirectional links (half duplex), with two links working together to form a port. Each port can be connected to a router manufactured by Network Systems Corp. (Data Exchange Box - "DX Box", no further info at this time)

The Network Systems router can be viewed as an optical junction box interconnecting the SOCC-connected RISC systems. The router also has an FDDI network output and, optionally, an IBM mainframe channel connection. Using the SOCC configuration actual RISC system to RISC system raw transfer rates of 220 megabits per second are possible. Architecturally, speeds of up to 400 megabits per second could be driven through the optical channel. The software interface that sits on top of the physical SOCC is TCP/IP and
provides the full range of TCP/IP commands and programming interfaces available to the user and programmer.

Pseudorandom Built-In Self-Test (BIST)
The BIST architecture for the CPU board is shown in Figure 1. It consists of four components that are presented in detail in the rest of this paper, the common on-chip processor (COP); the serial bus linking the chips (COP bus); the on-card sequencer (OCS); and the engineering support processor (ESP).



Common On-chip Processor (COP) 
   The COP is a technology independent processor that controls the built-in self-test sequence. There is a COP on every CPU chip, and a COP takes less than 3 percent of a CPU chip in this particular implementation. The COP communicates with the outside world via a four-bit serial bus according to a simple bus protocol. Together with the on-card sequencer, the COP isolates faulty CPU chips. Together with the engineering support processor, the COP also aids in the bring-up and test of CPU chips not previously tested elsewhere.



Note: "The external interface of the COP is the four-pin serial COP bus. Commands issued on this bus by either the on-card sequencer or the engineering support processor are processed by the COP and appropriate action is taken. The bus protocol supports both broadcast mode and individual addressing of a chip."

Engineering Support Processor (ESP) 
   The ESP is a stand-alone processor used for verification, bring-up, and debug. Unlike the OCS, which is part of the product, the ESP is not shipped with the product. It consists of an IBM RT System equipped with a COP bus interface adapter and the application software that controls its operation. The COP bus interface adapter acts as a protocol converter between the native AT bus of the RT and the serial COP bus of the RISC System/6000 CPU board. The ESP is intended to operate at a debug station in manufacturing or in a laboratory; it can be up to 30 meters away from the CPU board under test.

Because the ESP implements the full set of COP commands, it can run all the functions of the OCS. The additional functions of the ESP allow it to aid in the isolation of faults during system verification and debug, operations that require larger memory and disk storage than are available in the OCS:

* Control of architectural verification programs.
* Hardware debug for chip, board, and system.
* Software debug of the operating system.

The ESP software runs under the AIX operating system and consists of 25,000 lines of C code. It takes about 15 MBs of file space on the RT and runs in 800 KBs of RAM. The interface makes extensive use of windowing and can be tailored by the user.

To support a new chip with a COP, only three parameters need to be passed to the ESP software: the LSSD scan string tables, the embedded memory definition, and the new screen definition for the user. Once the new breakpoints are set, the debug process can start exactly as it does for any other chip with a COP. This remarkable consistency has resulted in a reduction in CPU chip bring-up time from a few months to a few weeks.

On-Card Sequencer (OCS) 
   The OCS is an 8-bit 8051 microcontroller with a 4-KB on-chip ROM and 128 (KB?) bytes of on-chip RAM. The ROM stores the "seed-good" signature pair for a pseudorandom test sequence. The good signature is obtained either through simulation or by using a "golden model" approach. Both seed and signature for a sequence are 31 bits long; hence, several hundred can be stored in the 4-KB on-chip ROM. For system function, the OCS addresses external memory on the CPU board for system operation and maintenance: 64 KB of ROM and 16 KB of nonvolatile RAM. It responds to the reset button on the operator panel and reports errors on the operator panel display.

The main function of the OCS is CPU self-test and reset. Because the OCS contains both seed and good signatures for a test sequence, it can control an entire self-test sequence by sending the proper commands to the COP of each chip. At power-up, after both supply voltage and system clock are stable, the OCS broadcasts a set of commands from its on-chip ROM onto the COP bus. First, all three-state output drivers for the CPU chips are disabled, thus electrically isolating each chip from its neighbors. From this point on, all CPU chips operate in parallel. The following sequence is executed:

1. Initialize the COPs.
2. Initialize all embedded memories.
3. Test embedded memories.
4. Self-test the DC logic.
5. Self-test the AC logic.

After each operation, the OCS polls the individual COPs. If all signatures match the stored ones in the OCS ROM, the CPU is reset for system initialization.

If the signature generated by a sequence does not match the "golden" one in the OCS ROM, a suitable error code is flashed on the operator panel display. The size of the sequence and the number of stored golden signatures determine the resolution of the OCS self-test. For example, self-test can identify a specific failing embedded memory on a chip.

Each test operation in the above sequence may involve several million system cycles. Regardless of how many cycles are executed, the test output data is always compressed to a 31-bit signature. Since seed and signature are less than four bytes each, the speed and bandwidth of the four-pin serial COP bus are adequate.

The CPU board self-test unequivocally identifies all failing chips. Since the I/O circuitry is not exercised, the chip-to-chip connections must be tested later (during the functional self-test for the entire system).

Note: Not all CPU cards / planars have a discrete OCS.

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