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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kapkan4u who wrote (68277)	8/10/1999 2:26:00 AM
From: kapkan4u	Respond to of 1578952

<Vcc of 1.6V may have more to do with Athlon's architecture and its Alpha roots...> I think I meant to say: Athlon's gate-level design and its Alpha roots... Scumbria, can you help me out here? Kap

To: kapkan4u who wrote (68277)	8/10/1999 10:03:00 AM
From: grok	Respond to of 1578952

RE: <Vcc of 1.6V may have more to do with Athlon's architecture and its Alpha roots than with the transistor size on AMD's 0.25u. Remember that Alpha was running at some ridiculously low voltage on an old 0.35u process. Kap> No, this is not architecture, it's transistors! You can be sure that Alpha at 0.35u had Tox more like 0.25u transistors.

To: kapkan4u who wrote (68277)	8/10/1999 11:03:00 PM
From: Yousef	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578952

KalKan2Us, Re: "Vcc of 1.6V may have more to do with Athlon's architecture and its Alpha roots than with the transistor size on AMD's 0.25u." You "guessed" wrong, KalKan ... The operating voltage is primarily determined by the process development team with some input from the design group as it relates to noise margin, bit cell stability/FET matching, etc. The reason that the process "guys" are in control is because performance of the process is inversely proportional to CV/I (C=capacitance, I=Idsat, & V=Operating Voltage). Thus, the performance improves as the operating voltage is decreased as long as Idsat can be maintained. To maintain Idsat, one needs to shorten the gate length, thin the gate oxide, make the S/D/Tip implants shallower/abrupt ... BTW, lowering the operating voltage dramatically improves the power consumption as well. Just imagine, all these benefits without doing anything to the "architetcure". <ggg> Make It So, Yousef