Processor supplementary capability

A processor supplementary capability is a feature that has been added to an existing central processing unit design after the initial introduction of that design to the marketplace.

A supplementary capability increases the usefulness of the processor design, allowing it to compete more favorably with competitors and giving consumers a reason to upgrade, while retaining backwards compatibility with the original design.

The CPU supplementary instruction capability does not as a rule apply to 8 or 16 bit CPUs, as many of these CPUs are used mostly as microcontrollers. On modern 32 and 64 bit CPUs the processor supplementary capability does not extend to Floating Point Units (FPUs) or Memory Management Units (MMUs) as these are considered to be fundamental core functionalities. Extensions to the core functionalities of the MMU and FPU may be considered CPU extensions however.

The supplementary instructions feature has always been assumed to mean fixed sets of instructions that are not obligatory across all CPUs in a CPU family. Supplementary instructions will simply not be found on all processors within that family. A programmer who wishes to use a supplementary feature of a CPU is faced with a couple of choices.

Supplemental instruction programming options

Should the needed instructions not be there a fall back to a (presumably slower or otherwise less desirable) alternative technique can be initiated or else the program may be set to run with reduced functionality.

By using a lowest common denominator strategy (avoiding use of processor supplementary capabilities), programs can be kept portable across all machines of the same architecture.

Some popular processor architectures such as x86, 68000, and MIPS have seen many new capabilities introduced over several generations of design.

Some of these capabilities have then seen widespread adoption by programmers, spurring consumer upgrades and making the previous generations of processors obsolete.

Processor Supplementary Instructions are instructions that have been implemented on certain processors within a family, but are not present on all processors within a particular family.

The following instructions are considered to be processor supplementary instructions on IA-32 architecture. These instructions were added to later production processors, and are not part of the original IA-32 instruction set. Programs containing these instructions may not operate correctly on all machines in the IA-32 family:

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