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

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (70669)	9/1/1999 11:12:00 PM
From: Cirruslvr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574002

Watson - RE: "The PPCs Motorola delivered to Apple for their G4s appear to be from a .25um technology and NOT .18um as they previously advertized. It's a 1.8V process (10.5 million devices) at 83mm2. The G3 predecessor from IBM was 40mm2 (6.5 million devices) in .25um technology." Why does the G4 cost so much more than the Athlon and PIII at the same MHz if it is about the size of the K6-2? And is it that small compared to the Athlon and PIII because it is a RISC chip?

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (70669)	9/1/1999 11:15:00 PM
From: Process Boy	Respond to of 1574002

WATSONYOUTH - <So this is not a .18um process.(at least not in the BEOL) If not, then AMD will be scheduled to produce .18um Cu BEOL processors before their mentor Motorola does it. Ready - Fire - Aim> Interesting. Thanks. PB

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (70669)	9/2/1999 2:17:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574002

TWY - Re: " The PPCs Motorola delivered to Apple for their G4s appear to be from a .25um technology and NOT .18um as they previously advertized. It's a 1.8V process (10.5 million devices) at 83mm2. The G3 predecessor from IBM was 40mm2 (6.5 million devices) in .25um technology. Adding AtliVec instructions approximatalLy doubled the size of the chip. So this is not a .18um process.(at least not in the BEOL) If not, then AMD will be scheduled to produce .18um Cu BEOL processors before their mentor Motorola does it." NOT according to THIS article: "Motorola said the chip is being fabricated with a new 0.18-micron (0.15-micron L-effective) copper HiPerMOS process. All six levels of metal use copper instead of traditional aluminum interconnects. " {=========================} seminews.com Daily news for semiconductor industry managers Motorola introduces its first copper processor: PowerPC with AltiVec technology A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc. Story updated 7:15 p.m. EST/4:15 p.m., PST, 8/31/99 AUSTIN, Tex.--Motorola Inc. here today introduced its first microprocessor with copper interconnects--the MPC7400 PowerPC--which integrates a 128-bit vector-processing engine on the RISC chip. In development for several years, the new processor series is based on the PowerPC G4 platform and uses a single instruction-multiple data (SIMD) parallel processing architecture. Along with Motorola's product launch, Apple Computer Corp. today disclosed it would use PowerPC G4 processors in a new Power Macintosh G4 series. Apple described the PowerPC G4 as a "supercomputer on a chip" and said it was "architected by Apple, Motorola and IBM" under the Somerset PowerPC joint venture in Austin--which was discontinued last year. "The new Power Macintosh G4 with its Pentium-crushing PowerPC G4 chip brings supercomputing performance to personal computing," declared Phil Schiller, vice president of worldwide product marketing. Only Motorola is producing the G4 processors, said Will Swearingen, director of PowerPC marketing based in Austin. In addition to power desktop computers--like the Macintosh G4 series--the MPC7400 is being aimed at networking, telecommunications, high-end embedded processing systems, and scientific computing. Motorola said the chip is being fabricated with a new 0.18-micron (0.15-micron L-effective) copper HiPerMOS process. All six levels of metal use copper instead of traditional aluminum interconnects. Earlier, Motorola began using the copper process to make high-speed 8-megabit SRAMs with speeds greater than 333 MHz. The PowerPC G4 architecture and the AltiVec technology allows the MPC7400 processors to execute 20 operations per clock cycle--a record for the industry, according to Motorola. Software can be optimized for the MPC7400's 128-bit vector processor to achieve substantial gains in performance, said Motorola. Extensions to the C/C++ programming language are being offered to developers to increase the performance by up to six times that of traditional scalar applications, said Motorola, which first disclosed the AltiVec PowerPC processor development in May last year (see May 7, 1998, story). The MPC7400 PowerPC microprocessor with AltiVec technology is available in 350-, 400- and 450-MHz versions, priced at $210, $275, $355 and $475 respectively in quantities of 1,000. A 500-MHz version is expected to be available soon, Motorola said {==========================} Paul

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (70669)	9/2/1999 2:37:00 AM
From: Petz	Respond to of 1574002

Watsonyouth, re:<The PPCs Motorola delivered to Apple for their G4s appear to be from a .25um technology and NOT .18um as they previously advertized. It's a 1.8V process (10.5 million devices) at 83mm2. The G3 predecessor from IBM was 40mm2 (6.5 million devices) in .25um technology. Adding AtliVec instructions approximatalLy doubled the size of the chip. So this is not a .18um process.(at least not in the BEOL) If not, then AMD will be scheduled to produce .18um Cu BEOL processors before their mentor Motorola does it. Ready - Fire - Aim> But if PPC G4 was not 0.18µ, then one of the following is true: 1. Athlon is really, truly 0.25µ as well, which means it will scale to higher MHz on true 0.18µ process (transistor density similar to Motorola's 0.25 process) OR 2. AMD process used for Athlon is vastly superior to Motorola's -- 650 MHz vs. 400 MHz. In this case AMD is already ahead of Motorola, so its Motorola that will be using "Ready - Fire - Aim" Petz