International Business Machines Corporation

Arun K Ghose

Richard R Konian

Samuel R Levine

John M Angiulli

Michael Steven Siegel

David Meltzer

Leon L Wu

Kevin P Moran

Wen-Yuan Wang

Vincent C Vasile

Faith W Sell

Richard A Fuller

A vector operation capability is integrated into the execution unit (E-Unit) portion of a computing systems central processing unit (CPU) designed to support scalar instruction processing. The fixed point and floating point instruction functional units in the E-Unit that are required to implement the vector instruction set are pipelined. A set of vector registers are added to the architected data registers contained in the E-Unit. The E-Unit control logic is modified to queue and schedule both vector and scalar instructions, The E-Unit's load and store unit bandwidth capability to support the transfer of the contiguous blocks of data normally associated with vector processing are enhanced. The integrated vector and scalar capability allows for improved processing of programs that include both vector and scalar type instructions.

Execution unit with an integrated vector operation capability

A variable frequency digital ring oscillator which can be formed in a small area for use in testing of chips employs a ring oscillator formed of CMOS inverters, transmission gates and capacitors and CMOS logic as a voltage controlled ring oscillator. A wide range of frequency of oscillation is achieved with small number of components. The ring oscillator circuit's oscillator frequency is controlled only by DC voltages, such as may be provided by (but not limited to) a manufacturing chip tester. The output signal of the oscillator swings between Vdd and Vss and does not need additional level translation circuits to drive CMOS logic. The ring oscillator can be composed of an odd number of CMOS inverters connected in cascade to form a loop. We provide a CMOS transmission gate with PMOS and NMOS transistor device inserted between each adjacent inverter and a MOS capacitor connected between the output of each transmission gate and the Vss supply of the ring oscillator circuit (conventionally ground). The gate voltages of the PMOS and NMOS transistors in the transmission gate are different and provide a different DC voltage between Vdd and Vss. Variation of the gate voltages of the transmission gates controls the frequency of oscillation of the circuit. The use of a plurality of cascaded delay elements between inverters achieves a wider range of oscillation frequency than possible with a single delay element.

CMOS voltage controlled ring oscillator

A low temperature conduction module comprising a cold plate having recesses around the periphery thereof to accommodate memory cubes is disclosed. The recesses accommodating the memory cubes are of such depth and dimension as to enclose the memory cube on all but one side, thereby greatly enhancing the conduction of the heat generated by the memory cube to the cold plate. The memory cube may be surrounded by a material which possesses excellent thermal conductive properties to insure efficient transfer of the heat from the memory cube to the cold plate. The plurality of memory cubes so positioned within the cold plate may be connected by a flexible cable surrounding the cold plate and having branch conductors extending to connect with computer processors enclosed within the same low temperature conduction module.

Arrangement for placing central processors and memory in a cryo cooled

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Hyde Park, NY, United States of America

Arun K Ghose