Cell software development: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:58, 3 October 2019

Revision as of 00:46, 30 December 2021

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====Porting VMX code for SPU====

There is a great body of code which has been developed for other IBM [[IBM POWERPower microprocessors|Power processors]] that could potentially be adapted and recompiled to run on the SPU. This code base includes VMX code that runs under the [[PowerPC]] version of [[Apple Computer|Apple's]] [[Mac OS X]], where it is better known as [[Altivec]]. Depending on how many VMX specific features are involved, the adaptation involved can range anywhere from straightforward, to onerous, to completely impractical. The most important workloads for the SPU generally map quite well.

In some cases it is possible to port existing VMX code directly. If the VMX code is highly generic (makes few assumptions about the execution environment) the translation can be relatively straightforward. The two processors specify a different [[binary format|binary code format]], so recompilation is required at a minimum. Even where [[Instruction (computer science)|instructions]] exist with the same behaviors, they do not have the same instruction names, so this must be mapped as well. IBM provides compiler [[intrinsic function|intrinsic]]s which take care of this mapping transparently as part of the development toolkit.