[Info-vax] ITIC 2014 - 2015 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Report (was Re: BASIC compiler in the hobbyist distribution)

[David Froble]

Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2015-06-01 04:05:06 +0000, Michael Moroney said:
> 
>> JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
>>
>>> But from an instruction processing point of view, is EV7's logic 
>>> still considered state of the art today ?
> 
> 42.
> 
> An answer that is at least as meaningful as the question.
> 
> Chips are systems, not isolated instruction decoders.  Getting the 
> instructions and the data onto and off the chip — expedient transfers to 
> and from memory, and to and from high-speed devices — is just as 
> critical as the instruction decoding processes.  EV7 and EV7z are 
> internally basically the EV68 core, and were fabricated using 180 nm 
> designs.
> 
> There is no shrink from 180 nm to 22 nm, BTW.   If the designers could 
> just turn a crank handle somewhere, and directly increase the clock 
> speed and/or directly shrink the chip designs, that would already have 
> happened.
> 
> Fundamentally, the building blocks are the same.  Transistors are 
> transistors.  But as you shrink the designs, the designs can and 
> variously must change.  (Look up FinFET and tri-gate as a starting 
> point: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multigate_device>, et al.)
> 
> BTW, there are some discussions of the EV7 design trade-offs and 
> limitations in Wikipedia, too: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_21364>
> 
>> If you ask that type of question, what about EV8, which was under  
>> development (I have no idea how far along) at the Alphacide.  Also, 
>> EV9 was a pipe dream then.
> 
> OpenVMS Engineering had received a few presentations on Araña.   (Araña 
> was a big bet; on whether it could be built, and if it could deliver.  
>  From a semiconductor business perspective, it's preferable to run 
> multiple parallel microprocessor design and development projects.  If 
> you can afford it.  If one project and one design craters, you still 
> have competitive new product to sell until the next replacements are 
> available, and to hopefully keep your very expensive fabs filled.  But I 
> digress.)  <http://www.realworldtech.com/alpha-ev8-wider/>
> 
> Like the EV7 designs, the Araña design work was from over twenty years 
> ago, so that's not going to particularly interest anyone now. Other than 
> some folks in comp.os.vms, select retronauts, and historians and other 
> collectors of computing ephemera, that is.

I think that many seem to forget where some of those developers are 
these days.  Perhaps those concepts for Alpha are alive and well today, 
and in Intel's E5 and E7 chips.