conor@lion.inmos.co.uk (Conor O'Neill) (12/19/90)
In article <44130@mips.mips.COM> mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes: > b) Next-generation RISC chips from MIPS (R4000) and Sun (Viking) > should come out in 1991, and are reputed to be pretty aggressive > chips with a lot of stuff crammed in there. I don't know > when they started; we started (effectively) about 30-33 months > after Intel. Could anyone from Sun comment on this Viking chip? I've not heard any mention of it before. If (and only if) no-one from Sun feels able to comment, could anyone else supply any details? --- Conor O'Neill, Software Group, INMOS Ltd., UK. UK: conor@inmos.co.uk US: conor@inmos.com "It's state-of-the-art" "But it doesn't work!" "That is the state-of-the-art".
dre@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (David R. Emberson) (12/20/90)
What's a Viking chip?
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (12/20/90)
In article <4865@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> dre@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (David R. Emberson) writes: | | What's a Viking chip? A funny boat with both oars and sails, with a big horse or dragon carved at the front. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.
myhui@bnr.ca (Michael Hui) (12/21/90)
>In article <4865@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> dre@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (David R. Emberson) writes: > > What's a Viking chip? I think they may be trying to build a 100 MHz Sparc chip. Probably full custom ECL. It could be fun, but then, not exactly state of the art.
mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) (12/22/90)
In article <1990Dec21.042157.8525@bnr.ca> myhui@bnr.ca (Michael Hui) writes: >>In article <4865@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> dre@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (David R. Emberson) writes: >> >> What's a Viking chip? > >I think they may be trying to build a 100 MHz Sparc chip. >Probably full custom ECL. It could be fun, but then, not exactly >state of the art. Eeek! Sorry; I didn't mean to pre-announce Viking for Sun, or cause unnecessary confusion, as I thought this was common knowledge even outside Silicon Valley, and certainly has appeared in the trade press numerous times. So let me just repeat the "common knowledge", obviously with no assertion that I have any inside scoop on this, or know anything else about it. It is usually described as an integrated, single-chip, superscalar design being done by a team of Sun and TI engineers, using BiCMOS (or at least, one of the aggressive CMOS flavors that seem hard to distinguish from BiCMOS). As far as I know, Sun has not announced this, although they've probably done non-disclosure things, and/or leaked hints to the press. My guess is that no one who knows any more detail will be willing to say anything, so random speculations are probably useless.... Of course, there is almost zero suprise in the above: OF COURSE they're doing an integrated chip; OF COURSE it's either superscalar or superpipelined; no reasonable engineers would be doing anything else at this point. -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc> UUCP: mash@mips.com OR {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash DDD: 408-524-7015, 524-8253 or (main number) 408-720-1700 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086