mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) (11/14/89)
> ... on the Berkeley RISC I and II chips, between 6 and 10 percent > of the chip area was used for decoding and control logic. Compare > this with a figure of 50-60% on a 68000 or Z8000 ... > > I think it would be quite easy to get more than a 1k cache out > of 40-54% of the chip size. After all, if each 1k of cache size > takes even 40% of the chip's area, how would you get a 32k (or, > for that matter, 31k) cache on a chip in the first place? What percent of the die area of a microprocessor should be devoted to *transistors*? It's under 100%, because some area is consumed by non-transistor essential things like interconnect wires, bonding pads, power busses, etc. How much? Less than 1 pecent? More than 80%? ============================================================================= "Any clod can have the facts. Having an opinion is an art." -HL Mencken "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." -M Twain "The truth is more important than the facts." -Frank Lloyd Wright -- -- Mark Johnson MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 991-0208 mark@mips.com {or ...!decwrl!mips!mark}