MARS-a RISC-based architecture for LISP

A RISC (reduced instruction set computer)-based chip set architecture for Lisp is presented which contains an instruction fetch unit (IFU) and three processing units: integer processing unit (IPU), floating-point processing unit (FPU), and list processing unit (LPU). The IFU feeds instructions to the processing units and provides the branch handle mechanism to reduce branch penalty; the IPU is optimized for integer operations, string manipulation, operand address calculations, and some cooperation affairs for constructing a multiprocessor architecture; the FPU handles the floating point data type, which conforms to IEEE standard 754; and the LPU handles Lisp runtime environment, dynamic type checking, and fast list access. In this architecture, the critical path of complex register file access and ALU (arithmetic and logic unit) operation is distributed into LPU and IPU, and the tracing of a list can be done quickly by the nondelayed car or cdr instructions of LPU. In addition, by using a new branch control mechanism (called branch peephole), this architecture can achieve almost-zero-delay branch and super-zero-delay jump. Performance simulation shows that this architecture would be about 4.1 times faster that SPUR and about 2.2 times faster than MIPS-X.