Conference ricks::dechips

+                HP TO DEBUT PA-8200 IN V SERIES 

Hewlett-Packard Co is preparing a new range of high-end V 
Series symmetrical multiprocessing systems using its PA-8200 
RISC chip, according to our sister newsletter Unigram.X. The 
servers are due in April, at the same time as the expected T600 
data center servers using the PA-8000 (CI No 3,105). It's 
unclear yet as to whether the V Series systems, described as 
mainframe alternatives suitable for high end online transaction 
processing and very large database applications, will come out 
through Hewlett- Packard's commercial server group or through 
its Convex Computer Corp subsidiary. The V series is being 
positioned as the vehicle for getting to Merced, Intel Corp's 
next-generation 64-bit processor. Convex's current Exemplar X 
and S series units aren't expected to be upgradable to Merced. 
The V Series will run the 64-bit 11.0 version of HP-UX, the 
company's first foray into 64- bit Unix, and it will be able to 
run today's 32-bit applications as well. The boxes are expected 
to perform five times faster than the commercial T Series, 
although not in their first iterations. Last June 
Hewlett-Packard was saying it would be about a year before the 
Convex technology would find its way into commercial systems 
(CI No 2,943). The 220MHz PA-8200 is the second member of the 
64-bit Precision Architecture RISC 2.0 family, which can be 
supplemented with 2Mb SRAM off-chip cache. The chip has a 
benchmarked performance rating of 15.5 SPECint95 and 25 
SPECfp95.

    HP are claimimg 50% improvement, see:-
    
    http://hpcc998.external.hp.com/computing/framed/technology
    /micropro/pa-8200/
    
    Andrew

	And PA-8500 rumours are out...Do we have aby facts around this?

 ----- Unigram�X -----

Hewlett-Packard this week duly unveiled its 120m-transistor 
PA8500 microprocessor, which has a massive 1.5Mb cache on chip. 
HP claims it is up to five times faster than rival parts, three 
times faster than the PA-8000; the 64-bit part is in 0.25 micron 
CMOS. 

Re PA-8500 -- see 658.5.  Did Unigram neglect to mention that this is still
18 months away?

Re: -.1 Yup, noted that topic soon after entering the 8500 thing. And yes,
	Unigram ignored the fact that 8500 is pretty distant future.

	HP is clearly fighting against EV6, as they have informed local
	press that "HP-PA will be faster than fastest Alpha this spring,
	soon after EV6 is out HP will bring significantly faster 8500
	than fastest EV6...".

	So, at least we have awaken HP ;-)