What is a M1 (64 gates)

[spaetz]

Hi Miguel, usually I don't care what the hardware does as you said it is too small to be really useful. However, now that you announced that the new generation is actually doing useful stuff, could you elaborate on the M1 for technical capable layman (no hardware specialist). What does it actually do?

Thanks!

[michaelgarvie]

Hi Spaez,
All circuits belong to the standard benchmark suite which is used to compare logic optimisation methods. M1, specifically, is an arithmetic unit. This means it would be a part of your floating point unit doing addition, multiplication or something like this (not sure which). However what matters most is its size. Prooving that dhep can tackle circuits of such a size is paramount to its applicability in industry. There are millions of different modules of similar size used today and many of them would be better off with some kind of self-checking.
:cheers: Miguel