larry
-----Original Message-----
READER HAS DROPPED us - and AMD Zone a line - about why Microsoft decided to
go with the PowerPC microprocessor for the Xbox 2 rather than an X86 based
processor.
See also Faster chip company signs up with ATI
Extremetech on Exponential
It seems that ATI which will be supplying the graphics chip to the Xbox 2,
and desiring the chip to be much faster than the upcoming R400 chip, has
tapped Intrinsity's Fast14 dynamic logic process in the construction of this
new chip.
Intrinsity as you may know is an Austin, TX based firm that has in its
employ quite a few engineers from another Austin based firm known formerly
as Exponential Technology. Those guys, back in the mid 90s, were trying to
design the next generation PowerPC chip known as the X704 which would have
leapfrogged all other processors both X-86 and PowerPC by coming in clocked
at the then unheard of speed of 533 MHz, effectively more than double other
processors of that time.
They were trying to do this by employing a technique of chip making from the
mainframe and supercomputing world known as bi-polar logic, a form of
dynamic logic. This form of chip making produces a much higher performance
chip than the standard CMOS chip.
However, it is much more difficult to make chips this way, at least back
then, and the chips come out running very hot. Before Exponential could
perfect this chip for mass market production, the PowerPC G3 from IBM had
nearly caught up with it in terms of clock speed, and Apple refused to let
clone makers Umax and Power Computing (formerly of Austin) to modify the
Apple ROM chips to let the Exponential chip work on existing Apple
motherboards.
Thus Exponential went belly up and the patents were auctioned off. What is
intriguing is that a handful of those patents dealt with the Exponential
chip's ability to execute both RISC and X-86 instructions down one pipeline,
basically a RISC chip that could emulate an Intel chip.
Now fast forward to today. Intrinsity which employs many ex-Exponential
Technology guys with a lot of PowerPC knowledge have this Fast14 dynamic
logic process using standard cheap CMOS manufacturing which has allowed them
to make the world's fastest embedded general purpose CPU which acts like a
DSP. Known as the FastMIPS chip, it's clocked at 2GHz (2.5 by the end of
April) with an integrated Matrix and Vector math unit running at full clock
speed as well. It has 1MB of embedded memory, an embedded memory controller
supporting up to 1GB of DDR SDRAM, and a dual I/O bus with up to 4GB of
throughput....all on one single programmable chip!
This chip is marketed to company's that need high performance, small
packages and low heat. Some of these markets include real time to near real
time medical imaging, high speed storage and networking, array processing
for radar and increasing cellular network bandwidth by a factor of 2-3
times.
Now let's put the pieces all together. Microsoft has chosen IBM, a long time
maker of mainframes and supercomputers to manufacture the XBOX 2's CPU...a
variant of the Power4 CPU known as the G5. It is high performance and highly
efficient, and thus much cooler than any X-86 chip which allows a multi-CPU
design to be put into a much smaller form factor than a comparable multi
X-86 design. The G5 has embedded in it a Vector Math unit which processes
multimedia instructions much like Intel's SSE instructions.
Once again the AltiVec units in the G5 are much more efficient and high
performance and share a mainframe and supercomputer pedigree. Enter now the
graphics chip side of things. The new ATI GPU using Intrensity's Fast14
dynamic logic process is a fantastic technological compliment to IBM's G5.
The GPU will also employ technology culled from the world of mainframes and
supercomputers such as dynamic logic for much higher performance and vector
math processing like the G5's Altivec multimedia units. Plus the Fast14
process allows for this much higher performance of dynamic logic without the
once associated heat buildup. Once again, an important design criteria when
building a small form factor console. Helping to make the new ATI Fast14 GPU
that much cooler will be the Black Diamond low-K dielectric insulating
process that ATI and its foundry partner TSMC uses.
Without a doubt the Xbox 2 will be the world's first consumer supercomputer
ever. Everything about it reeks of supercomputer....Multiple Power4/G5 RISC
CPU's processing in parallel and employing vector math processing. Those
CPU's designed by supercomputer manufacturer IBM. Graphics processor
employing dynamic logic and vector math processing from the world of
supercomputers, manufactured by ATI which is now primarily run by ex-SGI
engineers, again a manufacturer of supercomputers. Can't wait until someone
hacks into it and installs 64 bit Linux. Can you imagine a Beowulf Cluster
built of multiple Xbox 2s ?!!!
Here's looking to 2005...Cheers
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