Lexra - Revision history

Ralf: Link to alignment page

2012-08-31T07:49:39Z

Link to alignment page

Ralf at 08:11, 16 August 2012

2012-08-16T08:11:40Z

Ralf: Formatting fixes

2012-08-14T09:14:39Z

Formatting fixes

Ralf at 09:11, 14 August 2012

2012-08-14T09:11:45Z

Ralf: /* Linux support */

2012-08-14T08:58:25Z

‎Linux support

Zoobab at 12:17, 15 December 2009

2009-12-15T12:17:00Z

Alec v: /* Linux support */

2007-04-09T15:26:58Z

‎Linux support

Techno: /* Linux support */

2006-06-19T23:03:35Z

‎Linux support

Alec v: /* Linux support */

2006-06-17T18:12:07Z

‎Linux support

Ralf: /* Linux support */

2006-05-15T13:23:53Z

‎Linux support

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:49, 31 August 2012
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−	Lexra did implement a 32-bit variant of the [[Wikipedia:MIPS architecture\|MIPS architecture]]. Noteworthy architectural feature was the lack of the [[Instruction_Set_Architecture#MIPS_I\|MIPS I]] instructions <code>lwl, lwr, swl</code> and <code>swr</code> that optimize the handling of unaligned loads. Later the LX4580 core added hardware multithreading. Products implementing Lexra's architecture include the '''LX4080''', '''LX4080P''', '''LX4180''', '''LX4280''' and '''LX5280''', '''LX8000'''. Today Lexra is a defunct company. Several key employees of Lexra founded the digital video core company [http://www.ultradatacorp.com/ Ultra Data Corporation], the intellectual property assets of which have since been acquired. Many other key Lexra employees, including co-founder and CEO, Charlie Cheng, now work for ASIC vendor Faraday Technology in Taiwan, Sunnyvale, CA, and Framingham, MA. Lexra co-founder and CTO Pat Hays is now vice president of engineering for MIPS Technologies, Inc. in Mountain View.	+	Lexra did implement a 32-bit variant of the [[Wikipedia:MIPS architecture\|MIPS architecture]]. Noteworthy architectural feature was the lack of the [[Instruction_Set_Architecture#MIPS_I\|MIPS I]] instructions <code>lwl, lwr, swl</code> and <code>swr</code> that optimize the handling of [[Alignment\|unaligned]] loads. Later the LX4580 core added hardware multithreading. Products implementing Lexra's architecture include the '''LX4080''', '''LX4080P''', '''LX4180''', '''LX4280''' and '''LX5280''', '''LX8000'''. Today Lexra is a defunct company. Several key employees of Lexra founded the digital video core company [http://www.ultradatacorp.com/ Ultra Data Corporation], the intellectual property assets of which have since been acquired. Many other key Lexra employees, including co-founder and CEO, Charlie Cheng, now work for ASIC vendor Faraday Technology in Taiwan, Sunnyvale, CA, and Framingham, MA. Lexra co-founder and CTO Pat Hays is now vice president of engineering for MIPS Technologies, Inc. in Mountain View.

	Jonah Probell has written a [http://jonahprobell.com/lexra.html history of Lexra]		Jonah Probell has written a [http://jonahprobell.com/lexra.html history of Lexra]

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 == Linux support ==
 The instructions <code>lwl, lwr, swl</code> and <code>swr</code> are covered by US&nbsp;patent 4,814,976.  Lexra therefore choose to implement these instructions by software emulation.  In the 1999&nbsp;- 2002 lawsuit of MIPS Technologies, Inc. vs. Lexra, Inc. about violation of this and a second patent, Lexra and MIPS reached an agreement and the court never ruled on the matter. Which means it isn't clear if Linux can or cannot legally emulate the instructions.
 Instructions emulator sourcecode from Lexra exists as Linux MIPS kernel patches and [http://www.wireless.org.au/~jhecker/rtl8181/Lexra-diffs.txt.bz2 available] under GPL license.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Lexra did implement a 32-bit variant of the [[Wikipedia:MIPS architecture|MIPS architecture]].  Noteworthy architectural feature was the lack of the [[Instruction_Set_Architecture#MIPS_I|MIPS I]] instructions <code>lwl, lwr, swl</code> and <code>swr</code> that optimize the handling of unaligned loads.  Later the LX4580 core added hardware multithreading.  Products implementing Lexra's architecture include the '''LX4080''', '''LX4080P''', '''LX4180''', '''LX4189''', '''LX4280''', '''LX5180''', '''LX5280''', '''LX8000''', '''Netvortex''', '''LX4380''' and '''LX4580''' cores.  Today Lexra is a defunct company.  Several key employees of Lexra founded the digital video core company [http://www.ultradatacorp.com/ Ultra Data Corporation], the intellectual property assets of which have since been acquired. Many other key Lexra employees, including co-founder and CEO, Charlie Cheng, now work for ASIC vendor Faraday Technology in Taiwan, Sunnyvale, CA, and Framingham, MA. Lexra co-founder and CTO Pat Hays is now vice president of engineering for MIPS Technologies, Inc. in Mountain View.
+Lexra did implement a 32-bit variant of the [[Wikipedia:MIPS architecture|MIPS architecture]].  Noteworthy architectural feature was the lack of the [[Instruction_Set_Architecture#MIPS_I|MIPS I]] instructions <code>lwl, lwr, swl</code> and <code>swr</code> that optimize the handling of unaligned loads.  Later the LX4580 core added hardware multithreading.  Products implementing Lexra's architecture include the '''LX4080''', '''LX4080P''', '''LX4180''', '''LX4280''' and '''LX5280''', '''LX8000'''.  Today Lexra is a defunct company.  Several key employees of Lexra founded the digital video core company [http://www.ultradatacorp.com/ Ultra Data Corporation], the intellectual property assets of which have since been acquired. Many other key Lexra employees, including co-founder and CEO, Charlie Cheng, now work for ASIC vendor Faraday Technology in Taiwan, Sunnyvale, CA, and Framingham, MA. Lexra co-founder and CTO Pat Hays is now vice president of engineering for MIPS Technologies, Inc. in Mountain View.
 Jonah Probell has written a [http://jonahprobell.com/lexra.html history of Lexra]
@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 The instructions <code>lwl, lwr, swl</code> and <code>swr</code> are covered by US&nbsp;patent 4,814,976.  Lexra therefore choose to implement these instructions by software emulation.  In the 1999&nbsp;- 2002 lawsuit of MIPS Technologies, Inc. vs. Lexra, Inc. about violation of this and a second patent, Lexra and MIPS reached an agreement and the court never ruled on the matter. Which means it isn't clear if Linux can or cannot legally emulate the instructions.
-The '976 patent has expired December 23, 2006.
+Instructions emulator sourcecode from Lexra exists as Linux MIPS kernel patches and [http://www.wireless.org.au/~jhecker/rtl8181/Lexra-diffs.txt.bz2 available] under GPL license.
-Instructions emulator sourcecode from Lexra exists as Linux/MIPS kernel patches and [http://www.wireless.org.au/~jhecker/rtl8181/Lexra-diffs.txt.bz2 available] under GPL license.
+Technically support for Lexra processors without adding emulation of these instructions would be possible but the question is how much sense it would make as some software may rely on it fairly heavily.
-−
-Technically, support for Lexra processors without emulation of these instructions would be possible but it makes little sense since most software would rely in the instructions fairly heavily. A gcc patch that don't generate these instructions can be found on [http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2005-05/msg01249.html gcc mailling list].
 Following the lawsuit Lexra became a [[Instruction_Set_Architecture#MIPS32|MIPS32]] license.  MIPS later acquired Lexra's [[Wikipedia:Intellectual_property|IP]].  This resulted in the end of Lexra's former products and so at this time there also seems to be little interest in actually adding Linux support.
-Realtek [[Realtek_SOC|RTL8181]], RTL8186, RTL8650/RTL8651 SoCs are using a Lexra core.
+== Realtek RTL8181 ==
-[[Analog SOC|Analog]] (ADI) are also using Lexra core for their networking processors.
+* [http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/ RTL8180 Linux driver]
 == External links ==
 * [[uspto:4,814,976|US Patent 4,814,976]]
 * [http://www.mips.com/content/PressRoom/PressReleases/lexra MIPS Technologies, Inc. press release about the Lexra case]

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:11, 14 August 2012
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	Lexra did implement a 32-bit variant of the [[Wikipedia:MIPS architecture\|MIPS architecture]]. Noteworthy architectural feature was the lack of the [[Instruction_Set_Architecture#MIPS_I\|MIPS I]] instructions <code>lwl, lwr, swl</code> and <code>swr</code> that optimize the handling of unaligned loads. Later the LX4580 core added hardware multithreading. Products implementing Lexra's architecture include the '''LX4080''', '''LX4080P''', '''LX4180''', '''LX4280''' ~~and~~ '''LX5280''', '''LX8000'''. Today Lexra is a defunct company. Several key employees of Lexra founded the digital video core company [http://www.ultradatacorp.com/ Ultra Data Corporation], the intellectual property assets of which have since been acquired. Many other key Lexra employees, including co-founder and CEO, Charlie Cheng, now work for ASIC vendor Faraday Technology in Taiwan, Sunnyvale, CA, and Framingham, MA. Lexra co-founder and CTO Pat Hays is now vice president of engineering for MIPS Technologies, Inc. in Mountain View.	+	Lexra did implement a 32-bit variant of the [[Wikipedia:MIPS architecture\|MIPS architecture]]. Noteworthy architectural feature was the lack of the [[Instruction_Set_Architecture#MIPS_I\|MIPS I]] instructions <code>lwl, lwr, swl</code> and <code>swr</code> that optimize the handling of unaligned loads. Later the LX4580 core added hardware multithreading. Products implementing Lexra's architecture include the '''LX4080''', '''LX4080P''', '''LX4180''', '''LX4189''', '''LX4280''', '''LX5180''', '''LX5280''', '''LX8000''', '''Netvortex''', '''LX4380''' and '''LX4580''' cores. Today Lexra is a defunct company. Several key employees of Lexra founded the digital video core company [http://www.ultradatacorp.com/ Ultra Data Corporation], the intellectual property assets of which have since been acquired. Many other key Lexra employees, including co-founder and CEO, Charlie Cheng, now work for ASIC vendor Faraday Technology in Taiwan, Sunnyvale, CA, and Framingham, MA. Lexra co-founder and CTO Pat Hays is now vice president of engineering for MIPS Technologies, Inc. in Mountain View.

	Jonah Probell has written a [http://jonahprobell.com/lexra.html history of Lexra]		Jonah Probell has written a [http://jonahprobell.com/lexra.html history of Lexra]

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 Following the lawsuit Lexra became a [[Instruction_Set_Architecture#MIPS32|MIPS32]] license.  MIPS later acquired Lexra's [[Wikipedia:Intellectual_property|IP]].  This resulted in the end of Lexra's former products and so at this time there also seems to be little interest in actually adding Linux support.
-Realtek [[Realtek_SOC|RTL8181]], RTL8186, RTL8650/RTL8651 SoCs are using '''Lexra''' core.
+Realtek [[Realtek_SOC|RTL8181]], RTL8186, RTL8650/RTL8651 SoCs are using a Lexra core.
-[[Analog SOC|Analog]] (ADI) are also using '''Lexra''' core for their networking processors.
+[[Analog SOC|Analog]] (ADI) are also using Lexra core for their networking processors.
 == External links ==

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 * [http://web.archive.org/web/20010116175000/http://www.altera.com/html/mega/m-lx-5280.html LX5280] at webarchive
 * [http://web.archive.org/web/20010116172900/www.altera.com/html/mega/m-lx-4180.html LX4180] at webarchive
-* [http://jpkg.jungo.com/jpkg/toolchain-lx4189-ulibc.jpkg jungo lx4189 toolchain] (x86 binaries)
+* [http://jpkg.jungo.com/jpkg/toolchain-lx4189-ulibc.jpkg jungo lx4189 toolchain] (x86 binaries, no source code)

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 The '976 patent will expire December 23, 2006.
-Instructions emulator sourcecode from Lexra exists as Linux MIPS kernel patches and [http://www.wireless.org.au/~jhecker/rtl8181/Lexra-diffs.txt.bz2 available] under GPL license.
+Instructions emulator sourcecode from Lexra exists as Linux/MIPS kernel patches and [http://www.wireless.org.au/~jhecker/rtl8181/Lexra-diffs.txt.bz2 available] under GPL license.
 Technically support for Lexra processors without adding emulation of these instructions would be possible but the question is how much sense it would make as some software may rely on it fairly heavily. A gcc patch that don't generate these instructions can be found on [http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2005-05/msg01249.html gcc mailling list].