Ignite (microprocessor)
 An IGNITE Ia microprocessor | |
| Designer | Nanotronics, PTSC |
|---|---|
| Bits | 32-bit |
| Introduced | 1994 |
| Design | RISC |
| Type | Stack machine |
| Endianness | Big |
| Registers | |
| General-purpose | 52 (including stacks) |
IGNITE (formerly ShBoom and PSC 1000) is a stack-based RISC microprocessor architecture.[1] The architecture was originally developed by Nanotronics, which was later acquired by Patriot Scientific Corporation. The IGNITE microprocessor is one of the very few commercially produced microprocessors that use a stack-based computation model. Target applications for this unique architecture were primarily embedded devices (due the processor's low power consumption) as well as efficient implementation of virtual stack machines, such as the Java Virtual Machine or the stack machine underlying the Forth programming language. Unfortunately, the IGNITE processor was never successful in the market.
Notable Features
Besides its unusual stack-based architecture, the IGNITE microprocessor had several other remarkable features, such as micro loops and up to four instructions per 32-bit instruction word.
References
- ^ PSC1000 Microprocessor Reference Manual. Patriot Scientific Corporation. 1999.