Digital Equipment Corporation Maynard, Massachusetts 01754-2571 Editorial contact: Lisa Lipson (508) 568-4352 Patricia McGloin (508) 568-5102 DIGITAL MICROPROCESSOR POSTS WORLD RECORD Alpha AXP Billion-Instruction-Per-Second Chip Leads Industry MAYNARD, Mass. -- September 7, 1994 -- Digital Equipment Corporation today reported a major breakthrough in semiconductor technology with the introduction of the world's first commercially available microprocessor capable of issuing more than one billion instructions per second (BIPS). In announcing the accomplishment, Digital President and Chief Executive Officer Robert B. Palmer said the Alpha AXP 21164 chip is also the computer industry's most powerful and the first to break the 300MHz barrier. The 9.3 million transistor Alpha microprocessor delivers performance at speeds previously possible only in large multiprocessing systems, such as expensive supercomputers. When compared to the fastest competitors, the Digital chip is more than two times faster than Pentium, PowerPC, and MIPS microprocessors, the company said. "Digital continues to have the fastest single microprocessor in the world. The new chip is 75 percent faster than the previous record holder, our Alpha AXP 21064A microprocessor," Palmer said. "For customers, this announcement shows Digital is meeting and exceeding its goal to offer the highest-performance microprocessors and systems in the industry. And it is further proof that the Alpha AXP architecture provides the blueprint for unbeatable performance gains." The Alpha AXP 21164 microprocessor will power the most demanding customer client/server applications involving multiple databases, groupware for departments and workgroups, high-performance graphics and imaging, multimedia, voice recognition, and scientific and financial analysis. Customers can choose from nearly 6,000 applications running on Windows NT, DEC OSF/1 UNIX, and OpenVMS AXP operating systems. Digital said the Alpha chip's performance is further enhanced by the first two-level, on-chip cache memory. This unique feature also eliminates the need for an external cache for the most widely used desktop applications. In a comparison of transactions per second with competitive multiprocessor systems, a prototype Alpha AXP 21164 single-processor system delivered nearly twice the performance of the Compaq Proliant 4000 server with four Pentium-66 processors, and 1.5 times the performance of Sun Microsystems' eight-processor SPARCserver 1000 system. Digital is making available two versions of the microprocessor. The Alpha AXP 21164-300MHz has an estimated performance of 330 SPECint92, 500 SPECfp92, and 600 TPS (transactions per second), all industry records for a single-chip microprocessor. The Alpha AXP 21164-266MHz chip has performance estimated at 290 SPECint92 and 440 SPECfp92. The Alpha AXP 21164-300 MHz and Alpha AXP 21164-266MHz microprocessors are priced at $2,669 and $1,865, respectively, in quantities of 5,000. Samples will be available next month. Fabrication is taking place at the firm's Hudson, MA, semiconductor facility. Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated worldwide information systems. Digital's scalable Alpha AXP platforms, storage, networking, software and services, together with industry-focused solutions from business partners, help organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace. #### Note to Editors: Digital, the Digital logo, DEC, Alpha AXP, OpenVMS and AXP are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. PowerPC is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Windows NT is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Compaq and Proliant are registered trademarks of Compaq Computer Systems, Inc. Sun and SPARCserver are registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. MIPS is a trademark of MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company, Ltd. CORP/95/627 ============================================================================== Electronic Editorial Contact: lipson@mr4dec.enet.dec.com mcgloin@chipbz.enet.dec.com ============================================================================== Digital Press and Analysts News is sent as a courtesy to members of the press, analyst and consulting community. For subscription information please contact: Russ Jones Digital Equipment Corporation Voice: 415-853-6566 FAX: 415-853-6537 Internet: pr-news@pa.dec.com All Digital press releases, fact sheets and backgrounders are archived on ftp.digital.com in the /pub/Digital/info/pr-news directory. They are also available at http://www.digital.com/ on the World Wide Web. ==============================================================================