Duane's Homepage : Digital Alpha

A Guide To The Digital Alpha 21164 / 21264 / 21364 General overview Digital has been manufacturing a series of RISC processors known as the Alpha for use in high-end server and CAD/CAM applications. Alphas can also run x86 code, with some performance hit, by virtue of the FX32! emulator. Due to a low level of market demand, prices of Alpha based systems have been high for quite a number of years. However, AMD recently licensed the EV-6 bus protocol for its K7 processor from Digital and volume production may bring prices down.

The Digital 21164 Alpha processor The 21164 Alpha is a RISC processor aimed at CAD/CAM and network server applications. The Alpha 21164-600MHz chip has a peak execution rate of 2.4 billion instructions per second (BIPS) and delivers an estimated 18.0 SPECint95 and 27.0 SPECfp95 score. The superior floating point performance of the Alpha processor enables it to handle the algorithms required for graphics and motion video. Packaging of the Alpha 21164 series is courtesy of a 499Pin pin-grid-array. A scaled down version of the 21164, without an on-chip level 2 cache, the 21164PC is avaliable in a 413Pin PGA. The Key Features: 9.6 Million Transistors 16Kb L1 Cache (8K code, 8K data) 96Kb L2 On-chip Cache 0.35 Micron Process Frequency range of 366-600MHz

Digital 21264 Alpha Processor The 21264 Alpha processor is a third-generation 64-bit RISC microprocessor with two times the performance of the Intel Merced and four times the performance of the previous generation 21164 Alpha processor. Manufactured by a six-layer metal CMOS process, the processor comprises of 15 million transistors and comes in clockspeeds of 600MHz to 1 GHz. First manufactured on the 0.35 micron process, the 21264 will soon be scaled down to the 0.25 micron and then the 0.18 micron processes. The Key features:

out-of-order instruction execution	intuitive branch prediction
motion video instructions	64-kbyte instruction and data caches

Clockspeed	Integer Performance	Floating Point Performance
600MHz	40-SPECmark	60-SPECmark
1000MHz	100-SPECmark	150-SPECmark


The Digital 21364 Alpha Processor The Digital 21364 Alpha processor operates at speeds between 750MHz to 1.2GHz. Unlike its predecessors, this processor runs on the EV-7 bus protocol and features an integrated memory controller. Not only does the integrated memory controller remove the speed limitations imposed by the bus protocol when data is transfered between the processor and the memory controller, but it also allows for a large performance benifit in multi-processor environments since each alpha processor will have its own dedicated memory controller (as opposed to sharing). Up to 64 21364 processors can be used in a multi-processor system.

[Previous]	Cyrix Jalapeno Processor
[Next]	Intel 486 Series
[Up]	Information on processors
[Home]	Home Page
[Mail]	Send EMail to Duane's Homepage
[Search]	Search Duane's Homepage
[Contents]	Duane's Homepage Contents

All trademarks are those of their respective companies. This site is NOT responsible for any damage that the information on this site may cause to your system.
This site is optimized for viewing at 1024 x 800 x 24 bit color with Netscape Navigator 4.04 or later. All content on this web page and its related pages is copyright © 1996-97 by Duane Bong.

Last modified on Wednesday, August 03, 1997