The Inquirer: Free 64-bit processor design on offer

A TEAM OF Open Source engineers from Catania, Italy and Bristol have developed a 64-bit processor design which is free for anyone to play with.

A TEAM OF Open Source engineers from Catania, Italy and Bristol have developed a 64-bit processor design which is free for anyone to play with.

The collective, dubbed Simply RISC develops and supports CPU cores, peripherals and interfaces released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The new processor called the S1 core, is a cutdown version of the OpenSPARC T1 multiprocessor for embedded devices such as PDAs, STBs and digital cameras.

The S1 uses a 64bit SPARC core and adds a "Wishbone" bridge, a reset controller and a basic interrupt controller. This makes it easier for a system engineer to integrate the design with other cores.

It can run four concurrent threads at the same time and can work with OpenSolaris and GNU/Linux distributions.

More here.

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