IMS Takes On 80x86 Emulation

B.R.

International Meta Systems (Torrance, CA) is looking to make a big splash in the RISC-versus-CISC wars. This spring, IMS filed a patent application for technology that enables a RISC processor to emulate other instruction sets, such as 80x86 and 680x0.

According to company President George Smith, the IMS technology is applicable to just about any RISC processor. In the case of 80x86 emulation, it provides a modified decoder to handle 80x86 instructions, a means to track 80x86 condition codes, special hardware to handle 80x86 addressing and execution modes, and a way to emulate the machine state--particularly the register set--of an 80x86 processor.

IMS has developed a processor--the IMS 3250--that uses a RISC pipeline to emulate both a 486 and a 68040, and it claims that just about any RISC processor can provide CISC emulation with little additional circuitry. According to Smith, IMS has discussed its technology with more than one RISC processor maker, although at press time no company had committed to the technology. If the IMS technology plays out, it could provide a significant bridge between the CISC and RISC worlds.