Compaq Alpha 21364 op 1,1GHz begin 2001

The Register meldt dat de opvolger van de Alpha 21264 in het eerste kwartaal van 2001 op de markt zal verschijnen. De chips zullen geproduceerd worden op IBM's geavanceerde 0,13micron koper-procédé en draaien bij introductie op kloksnelheden van meer dan 1,1GHz. Nieuwe versies van de 21264 met snelheden tot 1GHz worden pas eind dit jaar verwacht:

Compaq has also started sampling EV68 parts although clock speeds of both its and its partner Samsung have so far only reached a max of 940MHz.

[...] A 1GHz Alpha is not expected now to be available until the end of this year, although the relevance of megahertz to the platform is not particularly significant.

However, IBM, which is now fabbing Alpha microprocessors, as first revealed here in February last year, appears to be getting good clock speeds even from a 0.25 micron process technology.

The introduction of IBM's copper technology has, it appears, caused other delays. EV7 technology is now slated to appear in Q1 2001 but will intro at over 1.1GHz, the sources said. EV8 is likely to appear in Q1 2002. [break] Voor info over de Alpha EV68 (21264) en EV7 (21364) verwijs ik je naar dit artikel van Paul DeMone (zie ook deze nieuwsposting van eerder deze avond): [/break] Despite only partial exploitation of its 0.18 um process, the EV68 will run at clock rates exceeding 1 GHz. Future versions of the EV68 that fully exploit the 0.18 um process will achieve about 25% smaller die size, higher clock rates and lower clock normalized power consumption than the initial device. A fully 0.18 um EV68 will likely take advantage of the smaller processor core to add a moderately sized on-chip L2 cache.

Beyond EV68 is an ambitious MPU design for high-end servers called the EV7 or 21364. The EV7 is based on the EV6x processor core but adds a large (1.5 Mbyte) on-chip L2 cache, on-chip memory controller/interface, and four sets of bidirectional interprocessor communication links. It is predicted to ship in systems next year. Compaq and IBM recently disclosed that IBM Microelectronics will start manufacturing Alpha processors early next year in IBM’s CMOS8S and possibly their CMOS8S2 silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process. At the 1999 Microprocessor Forum Compaq disclosed that the formidable eight issue wide, simultaneous multithreading (SMT) EV8 fourth generation Alpha processor core would be manufactured starting in 2002 in a 0.125 um, copper, low k dielectric SOI compatible process. Those specifications strongly suggest that the manufacturing relationship with IBM will be even more intimate in the future.