Freescale Details 7 New Chips (incl 7448)

curiousuburb

http://www.eetuk.com/tech/news/showA...cleID=47903043



7448 is single-core, MPX bus external, and not due to even sample til mid '05

amorph

OK, that settles that: Freescale is on the same sort of leisurely schedule that Motorola SPS was, and they're slowly but surely merging the 7400 line with the PowerQUICC embedded line. The model number for the "high performance PowerPC" they hinted at for this summer is VAPOR.



So much for them. I was hoping we'd have some alternative to IBM, but it looks like we're back to hoping that IBM finally manages to bang out a low-power 970 derivative....

tht

Quote:

Originally posted by curiousuburb

http://www.eetuk.com/tech/news/showA...cleID=47903043



7448 is single-core, MPX bus external, and not due to even sample til mid '05

Heh. Not surprising.



1. Virtually all other companies have had trouble at 90 nm. Freescale/Crolles will not be an exception.



2. Freescale's dual-core is a competitor to Broadcom's (SiByte) and PMC-Sierra's dual-core processors.



3. Freescale is aligning all of its chips into SoC embedded solutions unsuitable for personal computers. The 7448 may be the last of the breed and will likely be advertized as a 1.5 GHz or less chip. Apple may get higher clocked versions for iBooks, but Freescale is competing on Watts and will only advertize CPUs under 1.5 GHz.

anand

I don't know much about chips but it seems to me that Moto/freescale are making chips for things other than computers. That leaves Apple to get chips from either IBM or Intel (AMD). Boy, I hope IBM can deliver.

eric_z

My god that article's poorly written.

Quote:

The 8641D replicates more than the e600 core itself. The chip has two 1-Mbyte Level 2 caches and dual AltiVec vector-processing engines. Like the PowerQuicc, the 8641 (in both single and dual versions) turns the MPX bus into a fully internal bus for faster access between core processor and peripherals. In the 7448, as in previous 7xxx family members, the MPX bus is an external bus with interface pins to separate devices.

What do they mean with internal bus, do they mean (please no) the internal CPU bus that connects the core with the gigE, cache and such that isn't a part of the e600 dual core module? Or do they mean that for some reason unknown by man it's going to be used instead of RIO?



Though Here they make it sound like it might use RIO:

Quote:

In fact, the new dual-core MPC8641D and single-core MPC8641 will use the same internal buses and peripherals leveraged from PowerQuicc

And what about this:

Quote:

The 7448 will sample in the first half, with PowerQuicc members slated for the second quarter, and the single- and dual-core 8641s will sample in the second half of 2005.

Don't you usually go from earliest to latest or atleast keep the Qx dates and Hx dates separate?

pb

The question now is what are the options for the Powerbooks and in what time frame. This applies also to the iBooks, which are in breath distance from the Powerbooks.

curiousuburb

Rumours of a "dual-core" G4 PB in the next rev are certified Zombie now.



Either a weakly speed-bumped 7447 (typical Moto)... or IBM steps up with a 970FX.

pb

Quote:

Originally posted by curiousuburb

Rumours of a "dual-core" G4 PB in the next rev are certified Zombie now.

Well, this was rather for a revision somewhere in the next year, but it doesn't matter anymore. Game over, by all evidence.

Quote:

... or IBM steps up with a 970FX.

If this doesn't happen soon, I see Apple entering a very difficult phase, regarding updates of their notebooks.

peter north

so what is apple going to do?

krzysiek

and when?

existence

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter North

so what is apple going to do?

Kneel down, drop its pants and keep taking it from Intel Centrino notebooks in performance, battery life and price.

hmurchison

Quote:

Originally posted by Existence

Kneel down, drop its pants and keep taking it from Intel Centrino notebooks in performance, battery life and price.

Spoken like a tru Troll

gsxrboy

* ducks from the freescale wet blanket thrown over future ibook and pbook business *



This is somewhat disappointing news, start praying to the power tune gods for IBM to step back up to the plate.. otherwise the portables will be basically stuck at the same speed for another year.. man that sounds bad doesnt it.. gives my 1.5 some xtra legs tho I guess !

wizard69

The referenced article is so poorly written that I would hold any "information" within suspect.



In one place they say MPX is bing used and in another Rapid I/O. One would have to wonder why they would even bother with MPX is they have things going with the other busses.



Dave

Quote:

Originally posted by curiousuburb

http://www.eetuk.com/tech/news/showA...cleID=47903043



7448 is single-core, MPX bus external, and not due to even sample til mid '05

kim kap sol

Quote:

Originally posted by Existence

Kneel down, drop its pants and keep taking it from Intel Centrino notebooks in performance, battery life and price.

AFAICT, iBooks still reign supreme in battery life. And I don't even think the G4 needs to throttle it's clockspeed down to ungodly low hertage like the Centrino to achieve decent battery life.



I don't find my 1.5GHz Centrino computer to be very fast either.

peter north

well didnt everybody think the g4 was maxed out anyways and then out pops the bumps we saw in the spring? I think they might be able to bump it another 100mhz or so

benroethig

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter North

so what is apple going to do?

Apple has three options.



1. take whatever embedded CPUs freescale gives them and stay with 1" laptops.



2. Abandon the superslim concept and go with 1.5"+ notebooks featuring 1.6 and 1.8ghz G5s.



3. Go with a muti-tier approach with combining powerbook G4s and G5s.



Juding by Apple's form over function approach to everything, #1 is the most likely to happen.

peter north

Quote:

Originally posted by BenRoethig



3. Go with a muti-tier approach with combining powerbook G4s and G5s.

well then wouldnt the G5 laptop be the actual "Power" book? They'd need a new marketing name for the lightweight g4 laptops.

ionyz

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter North

well then wouldnt the G5 laptop be the actual "Power" book? They'd need a new marketing name for the lightweight g4 laptops.

iBooks?



They could sell the G5 Laptops code-named Behemoth, and continue selling PowerBook G4 along with them. Remember when they did that for like a year with the Power Mac G4s? People still needed OS9 booting, and I'd assume some people would still prefer their current slim, decent battery life laptops.



Where the Power Mac G4s not called "Power Mac"?



Really, what do you expect? What did Apple expect? If the chip maker isn't AMD or Intel you can get pinned into a stale run. Bumping a dead horse 100MHz at a time. Could AMD/Intel do better? We will never ever know. Apple will figure out something I'm sure.

tht

Apple has lots of choices. I would go with number 3, a multi-tiered linup. My preferred lineup for January 05 would be:

Code:

$ 999 12" iBook G4 1.2 GHz 1.3" thick

$1199 12" iBook G4 1.4 GHz 1.3" thick

$1399 14" iBook G4 1.4 GHz 1.3" thick

$1499 12" Powerbook G4 1.42 GHz 1.18" thick

$1799 15" Powerbook G4 1.42 GHz 1.1" thick

$1999 15" Powerbook G4 1.6 GHz 1.1" thick

$2099 15" Powerbook G5 1.6 GHz 1.5" thick

$2299 17" Powerbook G4 1.6 GHz 1.0" thick

$2499 15" Powerbook G5 1.8 GHz 1.5" thick

$2899 17" Powerbook G5 1.8 GHz 1.5" thick









[edit: My writing profeciency is deteriorating to nothingness. ]

amorph

The part of the article that I keep choking on is the part that talks about an internal MPX bus. Now, I'm no chip designer, but why in the sam hell would Freescale bother taking that bus on-chip?! They have a perfectly good fabric in OCEAN... If they're really that hung up on saving their existing design work, and they're still going to take this long to release their new designs, then it looks to me like they've got a hill to climb before they're running at full steam again.



I can see MPX as a legacy bus, but on-chip?! That makes no sense to me.