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Kernel support for the Vector-Scalar eXtension (VSX) found on the POWER7

Description

Kernel support for the Vector-Scalar eXtension (VSX) found on the POWER7
and POWER8. This instruction set unifies the 32 64-bit scalar floating
point registers with the 32 128-bit vector registers into a single bank
of 64 128-bit registers. Kernel support mostly amounts to saving and
restoring the wider version of the floating point registers and making
sure that both scalar FP and vector registers are enabled once a VSX
instruction is executed. get_mcontext() and friends currently cannot
see the high bits, which will require a little more work.

As the system compiler (GCC 4.2) does not support VSX, making use of this
from userland requires either newer GCC or clang.

Relnotes: yes
Sponsored by: FreeBSD Foundation

Details

Provenance
nwhitehornAuthored on
Parents
rS279188: sh: Add details about importing the environment and initializing OPTIND.
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