Alpha 21164
It was introduced in January 1995, succeeding the Alpha 21064A as Digital's flagship microprocessor.First silicon of the Alpha 21164 was produced in February 1994, and the OpenVMS, Digital UNIX and Windows NT operating systems were successfully booted on it.The final Alpha 21164, a 333 MHz version, was announced on 2 October 1995, available in sample quantities.Digital used the Alpha 21164 operating at various clock frequencies in their AlphaServer servers, AlphaStation workstations.[1] The Alpha 21164 is a four-issue superscalar microprocessor capable of issuing a maximum of four instructions per clock cycle to four execution units: two integer and two floating-point.The D-cache is dual-ported, to improve performance, and is implemented by duplicating the cache twice.[4] The cache required two cycles to access due to its large area.[5] The S-cache, due to the large physical area required, was implemented in two halves which flank the I-box, E-box, F-box and M-box.The Alpha 21164 contains 9.3 million transistors on a die measuring 16.5 by 18.1 mm (299 mm2), which was close to the maximum limits of the process.The Alpha 21164 is packaged in a 499-pin ceramic interstitial pin grid array (IPGA) measuring 57.40 by 57.40 mm.The 600 MHz version was introduced on 31 March 1997, shipping in volume quantities.Samsung Electronics signed a deal with Digital in June 1996 to second source the Alpha 21164A and the company was the only one to fabricate the 666 MHz model.Users of the Alpha 21164A included Cray Research, Digital, Network Appliance (now NetApp), and DeskStation.The microprocessor was jointly developed by Digital and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, and both companies fabricated the design.The I-cache was doubled in capacity to 16 KB from 8 KB to compensate for the lack of S-cache, as the Alpha 21164 relied on the S-cache to complement the I-cache in order to provide enough bandwidth to achieve adequate performance.A derivative of the PCA56, the PCA57 was designed and fabricated by Samsung Electronics in a 0.28 μm CMOS process.The 21171, also known as Alcor, was the first chipset for the 21164, introduced in January 1995 alongside the microprocessor it supports.The 21171 is an upgraded DECchip 21071 modified to support the new system bus protocol the 21164 uses.Polaris is a system controller developed by VLSI Technology for personal computers that supports the 21164A and 21164PC microprocessors.
Cray T3E-600microprocessorDigital Equipment Corporationinstruction set architectureAlpha 21064AAlpha 21264OpenVMSDigital UNIXWindows NToperating systemsAlphaServerserversAlphaStationworkstationssingle board computersmotherboardsCray ResearchT3E-600DeskStationPentium ProSPECint95_baseMIPS TechnologiesR10000Hewlett-PackardPA-8000superscalarclock cycleintegerfloating-pointvirtual addressphysical addressvirtual memoryphysical memoryregister filePALcodesingledouble precisionwrite-throughwrite-backfabricatedcomplementary metal–oxide–semiconductoraluminium interconnectpin grid arrayheat spreaderheat sinkSamsung Electronicssecond sourceHudson, Massachusettsfabrication plantsNetwork ApplianceAlphaServersAlphaStationsDigital Personal Workstationsstorage systemsMitsubishi Electric Corporationsingle instruction multiple dataapplication-specific integrated circuitmemorymemory busceramic ball grid arrayDigital Personal Workstation a-Seriessynchronous dynamic random access memoryVLSI TechnologyIEEE MicroMicroprocessor ReportWayback MachineKen OlsenHarlan AndersonGordon BellRobert PalmerInstruction setarchitecturesprocessorsPDP-11MicroVAX 78032Alpha 21064Alpha 21364Alpha 21464MicroPRISMStrongARMComputerterminalsVT50/VT52VT1000Operatingsystems4K DMSTOPS-10RSX-15DOS-11RSTS/ERSX-11TOPS-20VAX/VMSVAXELNUltrixProgramminglanguagesBASIC-8MACRO-10MACRO-11VAX MACRODIGITAL Command LanguageCharacter setsCode page 1100Code page 1287Code page 1288HebrewNational ReplacementRADIX 50Special GraphicsTechnicalBus standardsDigital Storage Systems InterconnectMassbusStandard Disk InterconnectSynchronous Backplane InterconnectTURBOchannelUnibusVAXBI bushardwareDECtalkDECtapeDECwriterDigital Linear TapeDynamically Redefined Character SetFireflyFlip-Chip moduleGold keyMass Storage Control Protocol