IBM FOLLOWS UP WITH ITS OWN EMBEDDED PROCESSOR

(September 11th 1995) Late last year we reported that IBM had three
new embedded processors in development (PowerPC News 16/1191). The
first (codenamed Valiant) turned up as the low-end 403GB in April
(PowerPC News 28/1321). Now the company has produced a cheap, but
high-end, chip, which should give Motorola's offerings a run for
their money.

The 403GC is sampling now with volume production expected in the
fourth quarter. It packs 72k Dhrystones/second at 33MHz, or 54.5k at
25MHz, exactly the same as the 403GA. The processor is designed for
multi-tasking embedded applications and, as such, it includes an
on-chip memory management unit which provides variable page sizes and
protection zones. The company is positioning the chip as a
jack-of-all-trades. It lists set-top boxes, video games, office
automation, PDAs digital cameras and hubs, routers and switches.

The 403GC has a four-way DMA controller, DRAM controller, I/O
controller, serial port interface, multiple timers and a bus
interface - which the company claims is flexible enough to attach it
to memory and peripherals with little or no 'glue' logic. The chips
cost only $44.30 each in quantities of 1,000.

The 403-series processors all share the same PowerPC core. There is
still no sign of the promised,and more powerful, 405-series or the
stripped down 401-series cores. These are promised for this year.
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