🚀 go-pugleaf

OK,

I can't say much about the chip because I am under non disclosure... But what I  
can say is this:

The chip is the IMS 3250
It is made by 
International Meta Systems, Inc.
23842 Hawthorne Blvd, #200
Torrance, CA 90505
Phone (310) 375-4700
FAX (310) 378-7643

Some gibblies on the chip:

Superscaler RISC
	2 instructions per clock peak, average of 1.5 instructions per clock
	Average 90 raw MIPS for the 60MHz part.

Emulation
	On chip ROM contains 3250 native microcode, 80486 microcode, and 68040 
	microcode.  
	(There seems to be a lot more room on the ROM for other microcode
	chunks like SPARC, or custom instructions.  Here's a teaser....
	What if an objective-C message pass (a somewhat computationally 
	expensive thing) was a processor level thing, and say happened in 
	3 clocks?  Or say they microcode a lot of mach low level stuff into
	silicon....)

Other neat items...
	1)	The chip is only 50,000 gates... So it is small, and can
	esily fit in ASIC standard cells.
	(What does this mean?  Well, say you had one of these things that
	was microcode tuned for Mach, and another for Display Postscript,
	and say another for DMA and another for I/O.  Then you build an ASIC
	with 4 of these cells on it and put it in a NeXT.  Think of all of  
	the grunge the CPU no longer has to deal with.....)

	2)	Only dissapates 1.5 Watts, that isn't much so it may be rather 
	useful for building things like NeXT poratbles or laptops.

	3)	IMS seems to be interested in a cost to vendors of around
	$45.00 per part. (as compared to the cost of a 50MHz 486...)

So for more information, contact IMS.  I don't work for them, but I do believe  
that there are ways that this chip could be used to improve performance of NeXT  
hardware.  (Really.... 50,000 gates and loadable microcode...)  

Some of you are going to ask what the SPEC marks are, and that is the kind of  
stuff I can't talk about.... Sorry.

I tend to think if this thing as a "Nano-processor"  Meaning that you write  
some micro instructions for the little beast that makes it perfect of some  
meanial job like talking to hard disks or handling VM and then you burn it into  
a 100 pin flat pack ASIC and it makes your life easier.

Hope this helps 

Bruce H (not Webster)

PS.  If you call, tell them you heard it from me.