HP reveals PA-8700 chip details

BANGALORE: Hewlett-Packard Company has revealed the details of its 64-bit PA-8700 processor, expected to ship in servers and workstations in the first half of 2001. The new processor is designed to operate frequencies of 800MHz and above.

The PA-8700 was released to manufacturing in late March. Preliminary HP estimates show that the PA-8700's integer and floating point performance will be at least 64 per cent and 14 per cent better, respectively, than Sun's published figures for the UltraSPARC III, a HP release claimed.

The PA-8700 employs a .18 micron, silicon-on-insulator copper CMOS process, allowing for 2.25MB of on-chip cache. The new .18 micron process reduces voltage, which significantly lowers power consumption when the chip operates at higher frequencies, and results in cooler operation.

"While HP is investing its future in IA-64, HP will continue to deliver industry-leading solutions based on PA-RISC, at least through the PA-8900," said Scott Stallard, vice president and general manager of HP's Business Systems and Technology Organization. "HP's dual PA-RISC and IA-64 systems roadmaps will preserve customers' current IT infrastructures and environments, while offering them the choice of when to make the transition to IA-64."