A performance analysis of a microprogram-based coprocessor

A technique for evaluating the performance of an Am29300 microprogrammable computer board in comparison to a host (an MC68020 single-board computer) is presented. The Am29300 microprogrammable computer board in this application is used as a coprocessor to a general-purpose MC68020 single-board computer. The Am29300 microprogrammable coprocessor board is used for speeding up the highly-repetitive and time-consuming floating point processing functions involved in three-dimensional image generation. The performance analysis of the Am29300 micro-programmable coprocessor is evaluated in terms of MC68020 processor clock cycles. A mathematical expression, containing floating-point operations is chosen as an application example. The analysis in this application has shown that the Am29300 microprogrammable coprocessor is eight times faster than the MC68020, six times faster than the MC68030, and twice as fast as the MC86040 processor.