What's new in the VLSI Microprocessors

* 25 Feb 1999 - Elbrus E2K - new processor
Russian company Elbrus International has disclosed the technical details of its revolutionary new microprocessor E2K. The microprocessor will function 3 to 5 times more quickly than Intel Merced while still running all legacy MS DOS and Windows software. Fabricated in a 0.18-micron process, the chip would run at 1.2GHz and deliver 135 SPECint95 and 350 SPECfp95, yet require only 35 Watts of power and occupy 126 mm2 of silicon. By contrast, Intel's forthcoming processor, which will be manufactured in the same process, would operate at 800MHz, occupy 300 mm2, consume 60 Watts, and score only 45 SPECint95 and 70 SPECfp95. Elbrus technology does not infringe on any Western intellectual property and it is protected by 70 US patent applications.
The technology underlying the E2k delivers computing performance that exceeds all other existing and planned processors, including Digital/Compaq Alpha. This extraordinary performance results from an incredibly efficient architecture design that has been continually refined by the Elbrus team. Over the decades, it turns out, it was often far ahead of Western rivals, introducing cutting-edge techniques such as superscalar design, shared-memory multiprocessing and explicitly parallel instruction computing (EPIC) before similar products or even papers on the subjects were available here.
The Elbrus team, led by a supercomputer architect Boris Babaian (another transcription -- Babayan), has worked together for nearly 40 years, mostly for the former Soviet Union's and Russia's defense establishment. Since 1992 the team works in tight cooperation with Sun Microsystems. The same team has taken a great part in developing Sun UltraSPARC processor, Sun UltraSPARC compilers, and Sun Solaris operating system. The E2K project is a commercial version of the design has already been used in the Russian Space Mission Control and the Russian Missile Defense System. The previous chip was manufacted in February 1998 in 0.5 micron process.
- for more information see press release "Details of New Superfast Microprocessor from Russia Disclosed" from Elbrus.
Boris Babaian Boris Babaian
An information about Boris Babaian and his projects could be found in the following resources (sorry, all in Russian): "Boris Babaian about Processors", and "Boris Babaian about Processor Technologies", "Internet-talks with Boris Babaian"


See also an article "Merced Facts and Speculations" for Merced features.

* 22 Feb 1999 - SGI R12000 - new chip
SGI introduced new (just for SGI) 300MHz MIPS R12000 processor for its mid-range OCTANE visual workstations. It also reaffirms its commitment to UNIX customers. New OCTANE/300 delivers SPECfp performance of 27.5 and SPECint performance of 17.3.
It was previosly rumoured that SGI cancels its high-performance microprocessor line as well as its 64-bit Unix IRIX64 operating system. In its statements SGI viewed itself as just producer of graphic oriented engines based on Intel processors and Microsoft operating systems. As a result, the first 300MHz R12000 processor was produced by Japan company NEC in November 1998. Recent SGI processor reaches less SPECfp95 performance than the ancient Japan one.
- see also previous shortcut
In 90th, financial success of SGI as a company was established by massive selling its computers to Russian military companies (up-to 90% of SGI revenue). Troubles of Russian national economy resulted in shortened military projects and, in turn, reduced purchasing SGI equipment.
The new OCTANE systems will be available March 1, 1999. Prices for 300MHz OCTANE systems will start at $19,995 and ship with 2MB of secondary cache, 128MB RAM, 4GB hard disk and 20" monitor.
- for more information see press release "Silicon Graphics Brings Powerful 300 MHz MIPS R12000 Processor to its OCTANE Workstation Line" from SGI
* 11 Jan 1999 - Intel Pentium III - new brand name
Intel announced the Pentium III processor brand name for its Katmai microprocessor. Intel also disclosed the Intel Pentium III Xeon processor brand name targeted for the server market segments. The Intel Pentium III processor logo and the Intel Pentium III Xeon processor logo join the Intel Inside program.
- for more information see press release "Intel Announces New Pentium III Brand for Next Generation Processors" from Intel
* See previous news shortcuts at the What's New: 1998-Q4 page.