G3 vs. PC. Thanks for putting up with it.

[Larry Leitner]

Philip wrote:

> What's up with the new IBM process that uses copper waffers or copper
> doped waffers? I remember reading something like "faster that present
> silicon technology" , "inexpensive compared to presnet silicon
> technology", "to be used for power pc's only"? Sure looked promising!!
>
> Philip
>




All chips to date use aluminum for wires.  The reason is that copper is a
contaminant of silicon.
So you have to keep the copper separated from the silicon.  The idea has been
around for a
long time just no one has been able to fab it.  Copper has less resistance
than aluminum therefore
you get a significant speedup.


IBM also has SOI coming soon.  (silicon on insulator)  This basically changes
the switching
threshold giving another speedup.

You can read about this in eetimes.  I'm sure other companies will do similar
things eventually.

I worked at Somerset (apple,ibm,moto alliance which IBM pulled out of 2
months ago) and
can clearly say that adobe, microsoft, and some extent apple had nothing to
do with how the
G3 (arthur) was designed.  Arthur was designed to be in laptops and low end
desktops.  Its architecture is directly derived from a 603.  It was made
small to keep yield high and prices down.   Its architecture is very simple
compared to 604 or 620.  Most of its performance can be attributed
to its cache structure.   A well fed processor is a happy processor.    It
was not designed to run
specific applications.  I believe it won microprocessor of the year (96 or
97?) by microprocessor
forum.

What's better?  Whatever you want to use.   I personally would like 64-bit
aix on the new
Power 3 (630 power pc) box.

Larry

let's get back to building...