[ I guess we're getting off-topic here. I'll make one more go of it for
"informational purposes" (I have a EE and worked at an IC design firm
for 2 years), but let's take it _off-list_ after this. Please reply
off-list. ]
chirs charter wrote:
> Nice observations. The alpha is gone now?
Basically. This was the chronology (with "extra nuggets" for
"completeness" which goes a long way to explain things):
'90-91:
- Digital and IBM release several MIPS R2000/3000-based workstations
- Chip vendors consider unifying around the MIPS RISC processor
- First Sun bails out (sticks with SPARC RISC approach)
- IBM-Moto start talking (becomes PowerPC)
- Digital leaves to start RISC-"anal" 64-bit processor VAX replacement
- Digital beings talking to ARM about licensing their microcontroller IP
'91-92:
- Intel takes an interest in Digital's new truly 64-bit "Alpha" project
which is ultra-liberal approach to RISC design
- Digital beings developing the "StrongARM" microcontroller
'92-93:
- Intel drops Alpha interest, decides to stick with current GTL+/P6
development (which became the Pentium Pro)
- Alpha releases first EV5 (64-bit wide, 66MHz), 64-bit processor, the
Alpha 21064, a chip that has only 32-bit and 64-bit instructions -- not
even a 8 or 16-bit load/store operation (again, _very_liberally_RISC_)!
- NT/Alpha released for x86, Alpha MIPS, PowerPC
'93-95:
- Other vendors release their 64-bit processors
- Intel releases GTL+ bus, 32-bit Pentium Pro
- Digital follows up with Alpha EV6 (upto 128-bit wide, 66-100MHz) 21164
(which finally adds 8 and 16-bit load/store operations) at 333MHz while
many other chips are barely passing 100MHz -- EV6 also introduces a
16-node, point-to-point bus architecture
- Samsung becomes first Alpha licensee and starts fabricating their own
Alpha chips
- Microsoft NT 3.1 released with x86, Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC support.
First Linux port to Alpha released.
'95-96:
- Digital begins development of Alpha EV7 (upto 128-bit wide, 166/333MHz
DDR/effective "reduced EMF") FSB, as well as the same 16-node,
point-to-point bus archicture
- AMD licenses EV7 bus for forthcoming K7 processor
- Digital adds "AV" instructions to new, low-cost 21164PC (21164 w/o the
L2 cache) to match MMX (a whole _5_ instructions, that's it!)
- Digital also releases FX!32 which is both an emulator and binary,
run-time "translator" for running/translating NT/Intel programs to
NT/Alpha (and wins numerous awards)
- Microsoft cancels NT/MIPS and NT/PowerPC ports leaving only NT/Alpha
- Truly 64-bit Linux/Alpha released as GNU/GCC/GLibC are made completely
64-bit capable, SPARC, MIPS and other processors follow as Linux 1.3
(2.0 beta) is developed as a cross-platform OS.
'96:
- Digital throws lawsuit on Intel for violation of Alpha patents
- Claims Intel misused private, but unlicensed information, disclosed
during Alpha collaboration of 91-92
- Alpha reaches 500MHz while all other chips are sub-200MHz, SPECfp95 is
3x most other chips of the time, and bests everyone in SPECint95 as well
- Digital also sells of networking division (15 of 18 top selling 10/100
NICs are Digital 21140-series "Tulip" based, infamous "Tulip"
fragmentation results and continues through today ;-)
- Intel beings IA-64 EPIC/Predication design.
- StrongARM starts appearing in embedded boards and designs at 133MHz,
blows away most other microcontrollers in performance
'97:
- Digital and Intel settle out-of-court -- Intel buys Digital fabs and
licenses both the Alpha and, more importantly (but not well covered by
the media) StrongARM (as an i960 replacement)
- Samsung and Intel become sole Alpha producers
- Alpha Processor, Inc. (API) formed to continue development and oversee
support, as well as continue Digital IC interests (like PCI/AGP bridge
chips and other interconnect chips)
- Intel Pentium II released
- Digital releases FX!32 equivalent (cannot remember name) for
Linux/Intel to Linux/Alpha binary emluation/translation
'98:
- Intel Pentium II gains clock speed
- Alpha 164 processors still stuck at 500MHz (for over 2 years!)
- Alpha 264 delayed until late 98
- Despite Intel's promise of lower fab cost in producting the Alpha,
prices don't shrink
- Most Alpha chips are still fabbed at 0.35-0.5um while other chips
shrink to 0.25um sizes
- Digital releases 64-bit version of NT/Alpha 4.0, never publicly made
available by Microsoft
- AMD begins x86-64 project with first product codename "Sledgehammer."
- API beings EV8/364 design which is a 100M transistor Alpha with both
run-time optimization and IA-64-like EPIC compiler-optimization (whereas
the IA-64 only has later)
'99:
- Digital sells to Compaq, largely for the MCSE staff (to become largest
professional support provider), but also gains Alpha
- Compaq promises to support Tru64 and VMS for at least another 4.5
years
- NT/Alpha port killed
- Max exodus of Digital/API design engineers to AMD
- Max exodus of Digital/NT developers to Microsoft
- Initial non-FC-PGA Pentium III appears
'00:
- AMD K7 renamed "Athlon" appears
- AMD announces and OEMs make 1GHz Athlons available, Intel announces
1GHz Pentium III one week later, but doesn't ship in quantity for over a
month (only a few Dell "special orders" are available)
- Flip-chip Pentium III and Athlons follow
- Intel IA-64/Itanium samples (with higher SPECfp than P3/P4, but slower
than 2-year old Alpha 264)
- RedHat (among others) release Linux/IA-64 beta for use on sample
systems
- Intel and AMD reach 1GHz while Alpha 164/264 are sub-1GHz
- Despite massive floating point performance of new Digital 264 chip
over any other processor, little adoption occurs outside of scientific
community
- The EV7 bus sharing technology with AMD never pays off with
cheap/common mainboards (AMD uses 64-bit Slot/Socket-A, Digital uses
128-bit Slot/Socket-B)
'01:
- Compaq/API sell all Alpha technology/IP rights to Intel
- Alpha EV8/364 project cancelled
- Compaq still promises to continuing selling Alpha replacement parts
and Tru64/VMS for several years
- Alpha Processor, Inc. is renamed to API (no acronym) and solely
focuses on support chips
- API releases first AMD HyperTransport (an open standard for system
interconnects) PCI bridge
- First OEM IA-64/Itanium systems released with release RedHat
Linux/IA-64 7.1 and 64-bit Windows 2K pre-releases.
> When did DEC discontinue it?
See '01 above.
> Lastly in the measurement what does "um" stand for?
The "u" is commonly used for "micro" on English keyboards. So "um" =
"micrometers" = 1/10^6 meters = 1/10^3 millimeters. This is the basic
"feature size" of a chip -- smaller is newer technology.
At 0.13um, Alpha would be closing in on 3GHz. Unfortunately, after
Digital sold their fabs to Intel in 1997, Samsung and Intel found that
they had more important things to do than make Alpha chips. Most Alpha
chips sold were still at 0.35um and 0.5um feature sizes, a few at
0.25um.
BTW, Samsung produced an _air-cooled_ 1.2GHz Alpha as early as 1997. I
had a 500MHz Alpha in 1996, back when Intel only had its 200MHz Pentium
Pro. The thing was 5x as floating point, well worth the cost.
-- TheBS
--
Bryan "TheBS" Smith mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] chat:thebs413
Engineer AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc. http://www.linux-wlan.org
President SmithConcepts, Inc. http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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