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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC)
INTC 40.56+10.2%Nov 28 9:30 AM EST
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To: Elmer who wrote (63070)8/21/1998 8:09:00 PM
From: Hal Rubel  Read Replies (1) of 186894
 
CPU Question

RE: "What is a "parallel processing PowerPC CPU laptop chip"? "

My Opinion:
The Motorola PowerPC Chip is a high throughput RISC type chip designed for low power consumption suitable for use in laptop and other low power/ low heat computing situations such as imbedded control systems for smart appliances.

The conversion to RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) is a transition made by Motorola/Apple/IBM in 1993 from the more traditional CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) still used by Intel. In effect, by redefining the instructional tool box into smaller basic steps that can be executed in shorter and more equal periods of time, it became possible to free up computational power to process a large number of steps at the same time, a kind of internal parallel processing. An advantage has been the relative ease to scale up the basic design into faster more efficient CPUs.

There are drawbacks and rewards. These chips require a very elegantly sophisticated operating system to run but are dirt cheap to produce. In fact, because Motorola uses finer lithography than Intel, I understand they get nearly 40% more chips per silicon wafer, the chips are dramatically smaller, and run dramatically cooler than the current Intel design. In fact I have heard that laptop box makers are currently having horrible problems with Intel chip heat generation and that the faster Intel chips just can not be used effectively in Wintel laptops.

You may have noticed how Apple advertises that its notebook computers run faster and cooler than clone notebooks and process more work than the best Wintel desktop clone. Intel lets them get away with saying it, so it's most likely true. Any way, its all just a trick. Apple does not use Intel Pentiums, they use these PowerPC chips made by this other company. The price they pay is that it is not standard computing, but on the other hand they get a unique product with which to attract customers without having to compete with the big-guys in the commodity computer market.

Hal
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