Xy Zhao - Thanks for the timely data.
Looking forward, a bit more news is leaking out from Intel re: their new chip being discussed at the ISSCC in February, 1997.
From C|Net, the article is as follows:
{==================================================================}
Chips faster than a speeding bullet
By Brooke Crothers
December 31, 1996, 2:45 p.m. PT
The biggest names in the chip
business will gather together in February to
introduce super-fast processors ranging in speed
from a 300-MHz P6 chip from Intel (INTC) to a
600-MHz processor from Digital Equipment
(DEC).
The new chips will debut at the IEEE
International Solid State Circuits Conference in
San Francisco in early February.
Intel will focus its attention at the conference on
its P6 family of processors. The company will
show for the first time a member of that family
that will use 7.5 million transistors and run at
300 MHz, according to a ISSCC97 Advance
Program sheet. That compares to a 200-MHz
Pentium Pro with 5.5 million transistors, which
is Intel's current fastest processor.
And unlike the Pentium Pro chip, the new P6
will also feature the company's MMX
multimedia technology to speed the
performance of applications that rely on
graphics, video, audio and communications.
MMX multimedia functions are expected to
obviate the need for high-end, expensive add-on
video cards and some communications
components for entry-level PCs, as well as
enhance the performance of multimedia
hardware on more expensive PCs.
The new P6 processor will have an on-chip
32KB cache. To date, the largest cache of this
type Intel has offered is only 16KB. The chip
will also come with a special bus--a "path" for
carrying data between components--for hooking
up to a high-speed external cache.
Processors generally need data much faster than
typical memory chips can deliver the data and a
cache is very-high-speed memory that can
continue to feed data as fast as the processor
needs it, thereby keeping the processor from
"starving" for data. Personal computers
generally have two caches : a level-one cache,
usually built into the processor itself, and a
level-two cache, most often external to the
processor.
A rare exception is the current Pentium Pro
which actually integrates a 256KB level-two
cache (in addition to the 16KB level-one cache)
into the chip package. The new P6 Intel is
discussing at the conference, however, will not
have an integrated level-2 cache but substitute
this with the high-speed bus connection to an
external level-two cache.
The new P6 could be a second-generation
Klamath P6 processor, known by the code name
of Deschutes, though Intel would not confirm
this. Deschutes is similar to Klamath but is
smaller and faster. Klamath is expected to run at
233- and 266-MHz and be introduced in the
second quarter of next year. Deschutes is
expected to be introduced late in 1997 or early
1998.
Intel is an investor in CNET: The Computer
Network.
Although Intel's chip is likely to generate the
most interest because of the Pentium's
dominance of the desktop market, it will be
Digital that will once again demonstrate the
fastest chip at the show with a 600-MHz Alpha
RISC processor.
The fastest chip that Digital has announced to
date runs at 500 MHz, in itself significantly
faster than anything Intel has to offer. But while
Digital itself uses the Alpha processor in its
workstations and servers, the chip hasn't
penetrated deeply outside Digital's own market.
The Alpha processor will have estimated
performance ratings of 40 SPECint95 and 60
SPECfp95. Both of these ratings indicate
extremely high performance. The 200-MHz
Intel Pentium Pro, for example, has a 8.09
SPECint95 and a 6.70 SPECfp95. SPECint95
generally indicates performance on
business-type applications while SPECfp95 is
usually a good indicator of performance on
scientific and engineering applications.
Advanced Micro Devices will discuss an
Intel-compatible chip designed to compete with
the P6-class of processors. The company's
engineering specification calls for the use of 8.8
million transistors. Like Intel's 300-MHz
introduction, the new AMD chip will include
MMX technology.
Other processors that will be demonstrated at the
conference include :
--A 533-MHz PowerPC processor from
Exponential Technology.
--A 550 MHz Alpha-compatible processor from
Mitsubishi Electric, which includes 13 additional
instructions for the Digital Alpha architecture
and support for MPEG-2 decoding embedded
directly in the processor.
--A 330-MHz processor from Sun
Microsystems.
PCs: The next
generation
Intel notebook chips lag
behind
Second MMX on horizon
500-MHz Carrera is
Porsche of chips
Exponential breaking
500
{===================================================================}
WHether the Intel chip being describes is the Klamath or a second generation Klamath is still not clear. However, the larger transistor count, as noted, is due to the expanded L1 cache - 32 KiloBytes in this new chip. (Vs. 16 Kbyte for pentium NON-MMX & 32 KByte Pentium MMX). However, the L1 cache is less than the 64 KiloByte cache in AMD's K6 and Cyrix's "discussed but not announced" M2.
My guess is (once again) that this new chip will be based on 0.25 micron process technology and it will be THE KLAMATH chip that actually gets shipped.
Nothing like starting the new year with a prediction that has a good chance of being wrong!
Paul
Copyright c 1996 CNET, Inc. All right |
