The Implementation of A Production System Machine

CMU-CS-85-126

Theodore F. Lehr

May 1985 - Thesis oot Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The increasing use of production systems has drawn attention to their performance drawbacks. To address these problems, investigations of algorithms and machine types for supporting production systems are being conducted. This paper discusses the architecture and implementation of a uniprocessor OPS production system machine. A brief tutorial on the OPS production system and its Rete algorithm introduces salient issues that temper the selection of a uniprocessor architecture and implementation. It is argued that general features of Reduced Instruction Set Computer RISC architectures favorably address these issues. The architecture and a RTL description is presented for a pipelined RISC processor designed specifically to execute OPS. The processor has a static branch of prediction strategy, a large register file and separate instruction and data fetch units. Because of the simplicity of the processor, the viability of realizing it in gallium arsenide is also discussed. The current status of GaAs digital circuits is evaluated as it pertains to possible gate counts, basic logic design characteristics and inter-chip signal propagation delays, The GaAs processor with a large register file requires nine separate modules.

82 pages

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