Re: IBM's Power5+ to hit 3GHz

[Ferguson, Neale]

In addition to microcode, don't forget there's a layer called millicode in
the modern 390/zArch box. This is the stuff that implements the complex
instructions like encryption etc. In fact, if there were no millicode we'd
not have Linux/390 (in it's current form anyway). It was the millicode
people who got gcc to produce 390 code. The next step to Linux was just a
natural flow on.