1.2.2 CPU (Central Processing Unit)

The N64 CPU is a very high-speed CPU with a clock speed of 93.75 MHz. Because an integer pipeline and a floating-point pipeline are shared, integer arithmetic and floating-point arithmetic are not processed simultaneously. However, floating-point arithmetic can be executed by the hardware.

CPU Features

The N64 CPU gives you all these features:

Belongs to the R4000 family of processors
Is more than 100 times the speed of NES
Provides an execution unit that equips the 64-bit register file for integer or floating-point arithmetic.
Provides a 16K-byte instruction cache on the CPU chip.
Provides a data cache that uses an 8K-byte write-back system on the CPU chip.
Provides a memory management unit that uses the high-speed translation lookaside buffer (TLB) to convert virtual addresses to physical addresses.

TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer)

The TLB has 32 entries. Each entry maps a virtual address onto the page of two physical addresses. Page addresses are variable and can be set independently in each entry.

CPU Specifications

Following are the N64 CPU specifications:

system clock is 93.75 MHz
bus width is 64 bits
instruction cache is 16K bytes
data cache is 8K bytes