🚀 go-pugleaf

Tae Song (tsong@erols.com) wrote:
: David T. Wang wrote:

: > Yes, you're right, I don't know aht I was thinking, the 66 MHz through the
: > 90 MHz 601's were .6 micron, the 100 MHz was .5 micron.  However, there was
: > a snippet from July 10 ,1995 issue of Microprocessor Reports, which stated
: > "On the PowerPC side, only the 601 has reached the .35 micron process. IBM
: > to move the 603, 604 and 620 to CMOS5X in 1H96"

: The 60-90 mHz 601s were created using IBM's 0.5 micron 4-metal-layer process.
: The higher clocking 601s and 603s were created using IBM's .5 micron 5-metal-
: layer process.  The five-metal-layer process allowed IBM to pack more 
: transistors into a smaller area and increase the speed.

This then begs the question, what exactly does IBM manufacture on its .35 
micron process?  I recall that Intel made a big hoopla about fabbing the
120 MHz Pentium on the .35 micron process back near the end of 1994, and 
a bunch of people (including me) assumed that Intel had then surpassed 
IBM in the process technology game and reached .35 micron first.  This
turned out to be incorrect. IBM later revealed that it had actually 
fabricated some shipping chips on its .35 micron process tech (albeit a
relatively small quantity) about 3 month before Intel did.  Now Intel is
just about all converted to the .35 micron process, judging by the number 
of 133, 15 and 166 MHz chips it's pumpimg out, but IBM seems to be still
manufacturing on the .5 micron process, with no move insight to move to
the CMOS5X .35 micron stuff until 604e.  (I still haven't found out for
certain what the 150 MHz 604 is fabbed on, microprocessor reports and
IBM's web site contracdict each other here)