JC heeft een artikeltje geschreven over de processors die VIA / Cyrix komend jaar zal introduceren. Allereerst Joshua, een gefacelifte 6x86 met 256Kb L2 on-die cache, verbeterde floating point unit (dat was heel hard nodig) en 3DNow!:
Okay, there's one bit that might really, really tick you off. The Joshua (I'm making an effort to call it "Jedi" when referring to the core and "Joshua" when referring to the marketed product) will not be released at 433MHz. It is, essentially at heart, a 6x86 on a better process. And the process it is using is still rather crappy compared to the current processes of the two competing chipmakers in this market (I think they're still fabbing on NSM's grounds, and they're perhaps moving over eventually to TSMC -- either way, the 180nm process there is a bit subpar to say the least).The Joshua will be released at a speed rating of 433, which I believe equates to 300MHz. I cannot prove this -- I'm kicking myself in the head (ow) because I can't find that dang PDF from a month or two ago. Okay, I did copy down the information, you can check it out here. The last bit of that news entry is what I'm talking about. This was info that was sent only to first level customers -- board makers and such. They have to be given accurate information in order for their products to be compatible, and given VIA's roadmap it is not very likely that the Joshua will be ever sold at frequencies out of that MHz range. [break] Verder nog een stukje over de Jalapeno, het zevende generatie design van Cyrix: [/break] Jalapeno was supposed to come out about now. Earlier, even. It would have been Cyrix's own K7, in a way. Like the Athlon, it was expected to have two arithmetic floating point pipelines -- one for FADD and the other for FMUL. Basically meaning that it could peak at two fp operations per cycle. Unlike the Athlon, it was to have 256KB L2 on the die of the processor. And it had a pipeline deeper than the Athlon's, meaning that it would ramp MHz like mad.
