Alpha 21264 Microprocessor Product Brief

The Alpha 21264 is a third-generation, 64-bit microprocessor designed to deliver industry-leading performance for systems ranging from PC clients to enterprise servers.

Key Features and Capabilities:

• Performance: Achieves benchmarks over 30 SPECint95 and 50 SPECfp95, with impressive bandwidths exceeding 3.2 GB/s for L2 cache and 2.6 GB/s for memory.
• Architecture: It's a four-way, out-of-order-issue processor incorporating dynamic scheduling, register renaming, speculative execution, and the latest Alpha architecture extensions, including motion-video instructions (MVI) and byte/word operations. It contains 15.2 million transistors.
• Operating System Support: Supports major 64-bit operating systems including Windows NT (the first 64-bit NT platform), DIGITAL UNIX (the first 64-bit UNIX OS), OpenVMS Alpha, VxWorks, and Linux/Alpha.
• Applications: Optimized for demanding tasks such as visual computing (video and 3D graphics), real-time DVD authoring, instant data mining, Internet commerce, medical imaging, and solving complex, large dataset problems.
• Cache and Memory: Features complete L2 cache control and flexible bus timing, supporting high-speed SRAMs (e.g., 200-MHz late-write SRAMs for 3.2 GB/s and 166-MHz dual-data clock-forwarded SRAMs for 5+ GB/s).
• System Integration: Simplifies system development when used with the 21272 core logic chipset.

The Alpha 21264 continues Digital's legacy of performance leadership in microprocessors since 1992, offering a significant leap in computing capabilities for both developers and end-users. It was slated for availability in Q4 1998.