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(February 20th 1995) Exponential Technology Inc, the San Jose company
intent on building a fast-clocked BiCMOS PowerPC-compatible chip has
finally won the licensing rights it needs from IBM. The company also signed
a semiconductor process patent cross-licensing agreement with Motorola. At
the same time, the company announced it completed the tape-out of its first
offering in January; keeping it on schedule for first shipment in early
1997.
There are still precious few details about the processor, thought to be a
functional equivalent of the PowerPC 604, but running at much faster clock
speed. The one concrete new figure is the part's dimensions; with a
die-size of 150 square milimeters, the part is considerably more compact
than the original 604 which weighs in at 197 square milimeters. There is
still nothing solid on clock-speed; the company is claiming that the chip
will be the "world's fastest CPU" when it arrives, three times faster
today's 133MHz or 150MHz Pentiums according to Rick Shriner, Exponential's
President and CEO. Shriner also re-iterates the company's claim that the
power dissipation of the processor will be in the same ball-park as a pure
CMOS processor running at the same clock-speed.
Details of the agreements with Motorola and IBM were not disclosed, but
Shriner said that once they got to the table with IBM, the final agreement
only took 30 minutes to sign. Motorola has, by the sound of it, been rather
trickier to negotiate with. The cross-licensing deal gives Motorola access
to some of Exponential's circuit-design patents and also its silicon
packaging work. In return, the start-up gets protection that will prevent
it, or its (un-named) chip manufacturer from trespassing on Motorola's
numerous BiCMOS patents.
The cross-licensing raises the question of whether IBM or Motorola could be
tempted to try and emulate Exponential's work, perhaps stealing the food
from their mouth. Technically, the answer appears to be that they could.
Shriner does not claim that his company's patents can protect him in that
way. On the other hand, he is adamant that Exponential is much more than
the sum of its patents - its home-built design tools and in-house
expertise would make it difficult for the big-two to emulate its work
swiftly, and anyway, he trusts that commercial realities will prevent them
from invading Exponential's high-end niche.
Exponential is unlikely to end up working at the Somerset PowerPC design
centre, however Shriner says that he's working closely with Apple's
representatives there. In addition, Motorola's marketing team apparently
intends to include Exponential parts in future versions of the PowerPC
roadmap (whenever that appears). The company expects to reveal who will be
building its chips in the next month or so.