POWER

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See also on Wikipedia: IBM POWER and PowerPC

POWER is an acronym which stands for for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC.[1] It was used as the name of a 32-bit processor architecture jointly developed by IBM, Apple and Motorola in 1991.

It referred to a RISC processor which was "superscalar", that is, was able to submit multiple instructions to multiple execution pipelines in a single processor cycle.

The successor architecture, PowerPC, was based POWER, but added the ability to support multiple processors, as well as expanding to 64-bit addressing and operations.[1]

And its successor architechture, Amazon, expanded the PowerPC "definition to support single-level store, decimal arithmetic, high-speed data movement, improved branching, fast call/return, and other functions needed in a commercial server"[1] as well as "capabilities...for a multi-user, multi-application system."[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Chapter 2 - The PowerPC Processors - The Evolution of PowerPC, "Fortress Rochester: The Inside Story of the IBM iSeries" by Frank G. Soltis, 29th Street Press, 2001.

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