[comp.sys.nsc.32k] Series 32000; alive and well

chaim@nsc.nsc.com (Chaim Bendelac) (05/29/90)

This message was prompted by the following recent threads: 32016 etc, Micro-
processors and market forces, Bubble Memory (was Re: 32016 etc.). I quote
(strongly condensed):

mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) quotes Dave Mason:
>
>   mason@tmsoft.uucp (Dave Mason) in his response to Henry Spencer:
>
>      henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer):
>      H  "It wasn't for want of trying; a lot of people lost their shirts.
>      H   The successful ones can be counted on your thumbs."
>
>    D "That's how you do it Henry, you have extra hands :-) I count at least
>    D  Encore, Sequent, Whitechapel,... in the Unix market.  32000s are also
>    D  very popular in Laserprinters".

And says: 
> J  "I'm interested in the second part: could somebody give some examples
> J   of laser printers that have 32000's in them?  I don't remember seeing
> J   the 32000 mentioned"


In spite of its elegant architecture, the Series 32000 family was mostly 
unsuccessful in its attempt to carve out part of the "general purpose" market. 
It is no fun to be third.

However, the Series 32000 is not dead. Far from it. When we realized
that we had a very slim chance to succeed in the limited workstation market
we looked around, and repositioned ourselves into what we call the "desktop
imaging" market. The classic example of this market is the laser-printer;
other examples include various (integrated) office-peripherals, such as
servers, fax-machines, scanners, voice-mail equipment, and combinations of
the above. I am not a marketing person, but even I can see that the potential 
in this market is better.  And when we started, not as crowded too :-).

The "desktop imaging" market is characterized by high-volume, low-cost
(that's the bad part), high-performance computing requirements. To hit
the right balance, the original Series 32000 processors were redesigned,
resulting in the Series 32000/EP family of Embedded Processors.

The first member, the NS32CG16, was introduced in 1988. On top of the 
32000 architecture (binary compatible), the CG16 adds some 18 imaging 
instructions (variations of bitblt and other bit operations). 
It is probably no secret that our largest customer for the 32CG16 is Canon, 
whose Mark III/LBP-8 and LBP-4 laser printers use it (I am told that these 
are now the most popular laser printers in Europe). Other announced 
customers include Facit, Ollivetti, Everex (which sells printers under 
various additional labels), and Mannesmann-Tally. We have many more 
design-wins, many which I cannot announce. (This market is undoubtly much 
less glamorous than the WS market).

To further answer "alvitar@xavax.com (Phillip Harbison):
>      I'm sure National would like to THINK it is popular in things like
>      laser printers, but I trust John's analysis more than NSC
>      marketing hype. Laser printer manufacturers certainly can't be
>      too pleased with the 32CG16' performance.  I'd imagine Postscript
>      would be slower than usual. :-)"

The 32CG16 is not an R3000. But it fits the market, in terms of cost/
performance. In fact, at 15 MHz running PostScript, it is equivalent to
the 8PPM Apple LaserWriter NTX, which sports a 16.6 Mhz 68020. At a
fraction of the cost, I may add. All major PS vendors/clones have announced
products around the 32CG16.

The second member of the Series 32000/EP, the NS32GX32, was introduced in
1989. Since it is derived from the NS32532, the 32GX32 is in a higher 
performance bracket. It is about 6-8 times the Apple NTX in performance.
Alps-America has introduced a 20 PPM 32GX32-based PostScript printer;
there are several more GX32 design wins, with at least one color
PostScript printer that I am aware of.

Now after two years, with an established laser printer market, we are
about to expand our focus to the entire office peripheral market.
To that end we proudly introduced last week three more members in the 
Series 32000/EP family, the 32CG160, the 32FX16, and the 32GX320.

The 32CG160 is a more integrated version of the 32CG16 (DMA, counters,
ext bitblt, interrupt control, etc). It runs at 25 Mhz. (And yes, we have 
learned our lessons: samples are available NOW, full spec. We have
PS running on it, dev boards and tools released). The CG160 simply provides
a higher performance/cost ratio, and is in that sense an evolutionary
product over the CG16.

The 32FX16 is our new flagship: our first imaging signal processor.
On top of the CG16's core, we have implemented a DSP block (incl on-chip 
memory for DSP coefficients). This unique combination (of a general 32-bit
processor with DSP capability) makes the FX16 (and its new big brother, 
the GX320), the only embedded processors to have enough computational power 
to implement high speed fax transmission in SOFTWARE alone (all in C!). 
We demonstrated this capability at our product launch. 
As you may know, currently existing fax products usually have at least two 
processors: one dedicated fax-chip (Rockwell, Yamaha, etc),
and another one to do control, compression/decompression, error correction,
grey-scales and other stuff. The FX16 can do all of the above, and 
PostScript capability thrown in (think about PostScript/plain-paper 
fax/printer products).
The FX16 and the GX320 are revolutionary products. We have several
designs in progress, some with *very* big companies. The FX16 is available
in samples (has been since January), runs at a full 25 MHz.

The 32GX320 is our new top-of-the-line. It is based on the 32GX32 core and
has a re-designed hardware multiplier plus 4 new (complex mul and complex
mul-accumulate)in addition to other system integration functions
(DMA, counter/timers, and interrupt control). It is targeted to
fax/printer server types of products. It is offered at 20, 25 and 30 Mhz.
Samples available.

I am hesitant to make this posting any longer than it already is, by adding
more technical details. If there is interest, I will be happy to oblige :-).

To summarize:
The Series 32000 no longer competes with the likes of sparc, mips and
the i860. As such, we have disappeared from the day-to-day spotlights.
But our technology has matured, we have refocused and we are doing well.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnote:

On a regular basis, whenever a message in this group mentions National's
Series 32000, it is followed by a predictable stream of (sometimes
uninformed, often irrelevant) bashing/flaming. A recent thread that started
with a question about the 32000's limited success in the workstation/Unix
market soon turned into reminiscences of De Gaulle's actions in the fifties,
Hitachi-scandals, sewage treatment, the number of thumbs on Henry's hands,
a story about a bozo NS salesman and Intel's bubble memories.

I will not counter the various claims that were made here on "companies
that went out of business" because of the 32000 or of National. Frankly,
whatever I say, some will continue to stick to their beliefs. Several
readers have pointed out corrections regarding Sequent, Siemens, Encore,
TI, WhiteChapel, etc. Please folks, try to stick to facts, not rumours!

---
chaim@nsc.nsc.com (Chaim Bendelac; National Semiconductor)

marat@ccu.umanitoba.ca (06/05/90)

The 32000 series is still used in at least 1 UNIX system, made by
Bruker Analytische Messtechnik GmbH of West Germany.  These computers
are used as an integral part of their magnetic resonance spectroscopy
and imaging systems and are also sold as workstations.  The current version
uses a 32532 (with fpu, mmu, etc.) as the main cpu, and typically has 3 32016's
running real time UNIX sub-kernals to handle data acquisition, display and
ethernet.  16 Mb of fast memory are directly connected to the cpu and up
to 128 Mb of additional memory can be installed on the VME bus. 
An array processor is linked to the graphics sub-system and to the
pixel memory  over a separate bus.  The UNIX implementation is V.3.
Performance in processing and displaying magnetic resonance imaging data
is several times that of other systems in this market (Sun).