D
David
- Jan 1, 1970
- 0
John said:The 68K family started in the early 70's and is still going strong.
The latest versions are RISC machines (all or mostly all hard-coded),
the Coldfire and (I think) Dragonball things. We still use the 68332,
with the nice CPU32 core, with cool stuff like a 64/32 hardware
divide.
John
The original Dragonball used a CPU32+ core (much like the 68332, but
with a full 32-bit databus) IIRC, combined with an LCD controller. A
later Dragonball used an ARM core (don't know why Motorola/Freescale
tried that one), and the current new Dragonfire has a ColdFire core.
Freescale refer to the ColdFire as a "variable instruction length RISC
architecture". It combines some CISC and some RISC aspects to give
something that I think is an ideal balance. The latest v4e cores have
full MMUs and FPUs if you want that sort of stuff.