Article View: comp.arch
Article #2978Microprocessors: waste & utilization
From: Mark G. Johnson
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1989 16:04
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1989 16:04
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1602 bytes
> ... on the Berkeley RISC I and II chips, between 6 and 10 percent
> of the chip area was used for decoding and control logic. Compare
> this with a figure of 50-60% on a 68000 or Z8000 ...
>
> I think it would be quite easy to get more than a 1k cache out
> of 40-54% of the chip size. After all, if each 1k of cache size
> takes even 40% of the chip's area, how would you get a 32k (or,
> for that matter, 31k) cache on a chip in the first place?
What percent of the die area of a microprocessor should be devoted to
*transistors*? It's under 100%, because some area is consumed by
non-transistor essential things like interconnect wires, bonding pads,
power busses, etc.
How much? Less than 1 pecent? More than 80%?
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--
-- Mark Johnson
MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 991-0208 mark@mips.com {or ...!decwrl!mips!mark}
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!mips!mark From: mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Microprocessors: waste & utilization Keywords: ... have made some measurements ... Message-ID: <31286@obiwan.mips.COM> Date: 13 Nov 89 16:04:25 GMT Reply-To: mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) Lines: 26