The R8000, formerly code-named TFP, was jointly developed by MIPS and Toshiba Corporation. As the first superscalar implementation of the MIPS architecture, the R8000 delivers peak performance roughly equivalent to a Cray Y-MP processor unit. Adding to its high performance, the four-way R8000 issues four instructions per clock cycle. The R8000 provides 300 million double-precision floating point operations per second (MFLOPS), 300 million instructions per second (MIPS) and a SPECint92 of 108. By shifting the power to the microprocessor, the R8000 enables cost-effective systems to perform at the level of multimillion dollar "big iron" supercomputers.
"MIPS leads the microprocessor industry with both technology and innovation," said Tom Whiteside, president of MIPS Technologies. "Our partnership with Toshiba has resulted in a tremendously innovative supercomputing microprocessor. MIPS will continue to push the limits of technology to provide the best performance for computer applications from supercomputers to servers, workstations, PCs, games and a host of new consumer applications. MIPS has, and will continue to have, the fastest microprocessors in the world."The R8000 chip set consists of a superscalar integer unit, a dual floating point unit and two dual ported tag RAMs. The chip set supports up to 16 megabytes (MB) of synchronous data streaming secondary cache. The R8000, fully binary compatible with the R4000 family, is the first processor utilizing the advanced MIPS IV instruction set. The 3.3-volt microprocessor features 16 kilobytes (KB) of instruction cache, 16 KB of dual-ported address and integer unit data cache backed up by the up to 16 MB of secondary cache and 1 KB of branch prediction cache. Together, the integer unit and floating point unit consist of 3.4 million transisters. Designed for a 0.5 micron L-effective 3-metal CMOS process, the integer unit and floating point unit die measure 17.2 mm by 17.3 mm."The MIPS R8000 rewrites supercomputing by taking the power that has been constrained to big iron supercomputers and putting it into a microprocessor," said Forest Baskett, chief technical officer and senior vice president of research and development for Silicon Graphics. "Silicon Graphics is building upon the dramatic price/performance brought by the R8000 to put world-class supercomputing into the hands of the many. The Silicon Graphics' Power Challenge, the first system to utilize the R8000 performance, will turn the supercomputing industry on its ear."
Contact:
Steve Schick (press) MIPS Technologies, Inc. 415/390-2573
Marilyn Lattin (financial) Silicon Graphics, Inc. 415/390-5070
MIPS Technologies, Inc. designs and supplies the world's most advanced RISC microprocessor technology. The company tests, certifies and licenses its processor technology to its semiconductor partners which provide processors for the computer system and embedded control markets. MIPS microprocessors power a number of computer industry leaders, including Acer Technologies, Deskstation Technology, Pyramid Technology, Siemens Nixdorf AG, Silicon Graphics, Inc., Sony Corporation, Tandem Computers Incorporated, NEC Technologies, Inc., NeTpower Inc. and Tektronix, Inc. MIPS RISC architecture components are available from Integrated Device Technology, Inc., LSI Logic Corporation, NEC Corporation, NKK Corporation, Siemens AG and Toshiba Corporation. MIPS Technologies, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Silicon Graphics, Inc. and is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.
MIPS is a registered trademark and R4400 and R8000 are trademarks of MIPS Technologies, Inc.
Cray Y-MP is a trademark of Cray Research, Inc.
Power Challenge is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc.
