How cool - I joined Harris after grad school expressly to work on RTX architecture issues. (Previously I was a Forth developer.)
Nice to see this neat-but-underappreciated architecture in the news.
RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#22Listed but unfortunately not stocked: http://www.mouser.tw/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=RTX2010
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#23How cool - I joined Harris after grad school expressly to work on RTX architecture issues. (Previously I was a Forth developer.) Nice to see this neat-but-underappreciated architecture in the news.
>Nice to see this neat-but-underappreciated architecture in the news.
It's already appreciated. Let me recall here the 'scientist' character (A&B Srugatsky) who explains the World as a huge inertial mass to the good or evil in the same.
Tertium non datur it is a principle of our mind sometimes used in computers.
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#24Can someone point to resources comparing stack machines and register based machines? The RTX2010 technical documentation talks about all the advantages of a stack machine but doesn't say anything about its shortcomings.
Optimal register allocation is an NP-complete problem. By doing away with it, you don't need to allocate registers. How that compares on a practical level, I have no idea. But it's one of the reasons the JVM has a stack-based model and no registers: it makes writing compilers for JVM byte code a lot easier.
Interesting. I agree with your statement regarding it being an NP-complete problem, as intuitively it seems that way, but do you have a reference by chance? Thanks!
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's all sorts of problems you have to deal with. Memory flipping is one of the most visible, but that radiation also will damage the lattice of the processor, making some transistors harder to flip on, and some much easier to flip on, leading to transient glitches, etc. Redundancy's definitely one solution, which is one reason why spacecraft tend to have multiple processors and/or processors with redundant logic…
Or we can use alternative semiconductors that are more radiation-resistant. One of many reasons why materials discovery is still very important even if initial chips will never match the performance of silicon.
I seem to remember Hughes using sapphire, but they stopped because not enough business.
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#26Listed but unfortunately not stocked: http://www.mouser.tw/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=RTX2010
I looked on Alibaba and Shenzhen suppliers have the HS9-RTX-2010-RH for sale at 10 cents a chip, able to supply up to 100,000 chips per month.
How do they do this? They're lying. Various Alibaba vendors list literally every part number they can find as something they are selling. If someone wants it, then they see if they can actually get it.
In any case, the real price for the RX2010 was between $1000 and $10,000 according to this thread I found from 1999: http://www.strangegizmo.com/forth/MISC/msg01281.html
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or we can use alternative semiconductors that are more radiation-resistant. One of many reasons why materials discovery is still very important even if initial chips will never match the performance of silicon.
Wouldn't work for all applications, tough, if I'm not mistaken, as you specifically need Silicon for imaging chips (CCD/CMOS). Or is that nonsense?
Other materials have been used for imagers. Gallium Arsenide in particular has been used for high speed, and high radiation, imaging circuits.
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Optimal register allocation is an NP-complete problem. By doing away with it, you don't need to allocate registers. How that compares on a practical level, I have no idea. But it's one of the reasons the JVM has a stack-based model and no registers: it makes writing compilers for JVM byte code a lot easier.
Interesting. I agree with your statement regarding it being an NP-complete problem, as intuitively it seems that way, but do you have a reference by chance? Thanks!
I can't find the original paper, but this almost seems more relevant.
http://research.ihost.com/lcpc06/final/7/7_Paper.pdf
Actually, here's the original for sale, but the abstract doesn't explicitly mention being NP-complete.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00960551819...
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#29Listed but unfortunately not stocked: http://www.mouser.tw/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=RTX2010
I looked on Alibaba and Shenzhen suppliers have the HS9-RTX-2010-RH for sale at 10 cents a chip, able to supply up to 100,000 chips per month. How do they do this? They're lying. Various Alibaba vendors list literally every part number they can find as something they are selling. If someone wants it, then they see if they can actually get it. In any case, the real price for the RX2010 was between $1000 and $10,000 ac…
Of course they are. The last place I'd go for reputable semiconductor suppliers is Alibaba. The LAST.
Re: RTX2010 – Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor
#30I wonder how hard it is to create a radiation hardened CPU. Is the premise that radiation can flip bits in the on-die cache and registers? would simply making those redundant be a solution? Or could a single flash of radiation invalidate all memory on the device?
If it's rad-hard, it's export-controlled in the US. See the US Munitions List, category XV, section (d), "Radiation-hardened microelectronic circuits".
https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/documents/offi...
So mass market products aren't made radiation-hard. Rad-hard CPUs more modern than that FORTH engine exist; Atmel makes a rad-hard SPARC. But they're produced in tiny quantities and are thus very expensive.