Audience; Organization - IBM PowerPC 604 User Manual

• PowerPC operating environment architecture (OEA)-The OEA defines
supervisor-level resources typically required by an operating system. The OEA
defines the PowerPC memory management model, supervisor-level registers, and
the exception model.
Implementations that conform to the PowerPC OEA also conform to the PowerPC
UISA and VEA.
It is important to note that some resources are defined more generally at one level in the
architecture and more specifically at another. For example, conditions that can cause a
floating-point exception are defined by the UISA, while the exception mechanism itself is
defined by the OEA.
Because it is important to distinguish between the levels of the architecture in order to
ensure compatibility across multiple platforms, those distinctions are shown clearly
throughout this book.
For ease in reference, this book has arranged topics described by the architecture
information into topics that build upon one another, beginning with a description and
complete summary of 604-specific registers and progressing to more specialized topics
such as 604-specific details regarding the cache, exception, and memory management
models.
As
such, chapters may include information from multiple levels of the architecture.
(For example, the discussion of the cache model uses information from both the VEA and
theOEA.)
The information in this book is subject to change without notice, as described in the
disclaimers on
the
title page of this book.
As
with any technical documentation, it is the
readers' responsibility to be sure they are using the most recent version of the
documentation. For more information, contact your sales representative.
Audience
This manual is intended for system software and hardware developers and application
programmers who want to develop products for the 604. It is assumed that the reader
understands operating systems, microprocessor system design, the basic principles of RISC
processing, and details of the PowerPC architecture.
Organization
Following is a summary and a brief description of the major sections of this manual:
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• Chapter 1, "Overview," is useful for those who want a general understanding of the
features and functions of the Power PC architecture. This chapter describes the
flexible nature of the PowerPC architecture definition, and provides an overview of
how the PowerPC architecture defines the register set, operand conventions,
addressing modes, instruction set, cache model, exception model, and memory
management model.
PowerPC 604 RISC Microproc8880r User's Manual