🚀 go-pugleaf

David T. Wang (veakblad@Glue.umd.edu) wrote:
: Tae Song (tsong@erols.com) wrote:
: :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)

Aha, I think that I've found the answer.  The answer is that IBM calls 
a couple of different process technology all as .5 micron process.
Have a look at ...
http://www.chips.ibm.com/technology/index.html

IBM actually has two different " 0.5 micron process technology" (okay,
at least two, probably more) on this page it shows CMOS5L and CMOS5S.
and if we go into more details about CMOS5L and CMOS5S, we find that
CMOS5S has a .36 um effective channel length, and was probably the 
technology which 601 was fabbed on.  No doubt that the PPC604@150 was
fabbed on CMOS5S, and the slower parts could be from a CMOS5L process,
and IBM could still call them all "0.5 micron process"  This is 
probably where the confusion was introduced, as Microprocessor Reports
may have just looked at it, and just said, okay, the 601 and the 604
has reached .35 micron, whereas if you just looked at IBM's page without
digging into the details, you'd think that they're all still at .5 
micron.  Maybe the CMOS5S could be described as a 0.4 micron process?
it's defintely more advanced, and you can pack more gates onto the
chip, as compared to CMOS5L.  This would have at least solved my confusion.

Okay, now, still more question, what, other than the 133 MHz Cyrix 6x86 chip,
does IBM fab on its CMOS5X process? (.31 um effective channel length)