Re: News on F21
On Mon, 10 Mar 1997, Penio Penev wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Mar 1997, Jeff Fox wrote:
>
> > Penio asked:
> >
> > >Not to mention, that the F21 die is 3/4 empty and I bet that Chuck is
> > >working on putting memory there, which will raise the throughput at least
> > >twice -- to the true 400 MIPs. Jeff, is that right?
> >
> > Yes. On chip RAM and/or ROM will reduce or remove the memory
> > bottleneck. We are currently at about 500mips internally but SRAM will
> > limit you to about 200 and DRAM closer to 100 at least with external
> > memory and the current memory setup time on these chips.
>
> > As for price volume still remains the main issue.
>
> > If I get 10k made the manufacture cost drops to $15. This means if that
The MuP21 street price was several $10.
> > many are made the price will be low compared to $100 chips, but not
> > compared to $2 chips. If millions are manufactured then the price starts
> > to look nice. In very large quantity they _could_ be in the $1-$2 price
> > range, but don't hold out for it.
>
> When the price is in the $10 range, is is essential that this be the final
> price in a multiprocessor system, i.e., it contains enough RAM inside to
> fit a small kernel, some networking code, some application code, and some
Anybody noticed the L4 micro/nanokernel with Linux personality? The
exokernel? The new DSP OSses? It seems the train is picking up speed.
> data, that is gotten in and out via the network and/or parallel port.
>
> If memory serves me right, F21 is 3/4 empty and is about 15K transistors.
> that means that another 45K are potentially sitting there unused. How many
> Ks of SRAM does that make? If Chuck's OKAD is about 8K, I believe that
> almost anything useful can be that big and fit on chip.
An SRAM cell takes 4-6 transistors. Since unused silicon is oblivious to
random defect hits but SRAM cells are not, yield will go down, and
prices up.
>
> Is there a chance that F21c will include experimantal on-chip RAM, albeit
> in small amounts?
>
> In other words, where is Chuck's bottleneck -- design, testing, writing
> software, developing OKAD, or just the lack of $10/fab run?
>
> --
> Penio Penev <Penev@pisa.Rockefeller.edu> 1-212-327-7423
>
>
ciao,
'gene
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