Microprocessor Report on the PA-8500:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PA-8500 to Hit 440MHz:
Although the PA-8500 has slipped into early next year, HP has countered by boosting its clock speed. The company will initially deliver 360-MHz parts but expects to quickly boost the clock speed to 440MHz. The speedup comes from a slightly modified design with some critical speed paths improved. Both will ship in January; HP had previously committed to shipment in 1998.
The increase in clock speed is fortuitous, as the initial part will fall far short of the target of 30 SPECint95 (base) and 50 SPECfp95 (base) that HP set for itself last year (see MPR 12/29/97, p.1). The 440MHz part, however, will deliver an estimated 30 int/50 fp, exactly on target.
These scores are greater than any yet reported, passing the Alpha 21264 (see MPR 9/14/98, p.4) at 26 int/41 fp. The Alpha chip is now slated for December shipments, giving Compaq little time to boost the performance of its systems before the 440MHz PA-8500 begins shipping.
In a bid to capture MPR's 1998 award for Highest Manufacturing Cost, the corpulent PA-8500 weighs in at 475mm^2 in 0.25um technology-a surprise, given HP's prior statement that the PA-8500 would be only "somewhat larger" than the 345mm^2 PA-8200. Even with generous yield credit for SRAM redundancy, we estimate the manufacturing cost to be on the far side of $400. While this cost is much higher than that of other processor, the PA-8500 requires no expensive cache SRAMs, as it includes 1.5M of on-die L2 cache. HP did not disclose its fab; Intel is a possibility.
The 360MHz PA-8500 will begin shipping in January as a board upgrade to HP's Visualize C200 and C240 workstations. The PA-8500 board lists for $8000-steep, but a far cry from the $65,000 for an Alpha 21264 upgrade board. HP is likely to offer the faster PA-8500 in new workstation and server products to be announced this year. The new PA processor should keep HP dueling with Alpha in the performance race, at least until Merced appears. -L.G.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Man this 475mm^2 is 2.5X the K7 and over 3X CeleronA die size. Maximum die per 8" wafer will be less than 50. Guess HP is not going to sell many of these chips.
Maxwell |
