Motorola Inc. launched Tuesday its new MPC7450 PowerPC microprocessor, designed for a variety of applications including networking equipment, high-end embedded systems and desktop computers.
The processor is shipping now at speeds of 533MHz, 667MHz, and 733MHz, Motorola said in a statement issued Tuesday.
The MPC7450 is the third member of Motorola’s G4 (fourth generation) family of PowerPC chips, and will be featured in Apple Computer Inc.’s new Power Mac G4 desktop systems announced earlier Tuesday. The processor is also targeted for use in telecommunications and scientific computing markets, Motorola said.
Customers should benefit from the chip’s higher performance, wide data bus and low-power requirements, Motorola said in the statement.
In particular, the MPC7450 has a deeper, seven-stage pipeline with two additional execution units, and includes enhancements to Motorola’s AltiVec vector processing engine. To further boost performance, the processor’s Level 2 cache has been integrated onto the die, and the chip uses a 256-bit data path to the Level 1 cache, Motorola said.
Designed at Motorola’s Austin, Texas technology center, the MPC7450 is being manufactured using a HiPerMOS 6 (HiP6) 0.18-micron copper fabrication process technology, Motorola said. In 10,000-unit quantities, the processors are priced at US$250 for the 533MHz version, US$295 for the 667MHz, and $370 for the 733MHz, a Motorola spokesman said.
Also Tuesday, Motorola introduced a speed upgrade to its existing MPC7410 PowerPC processor running at 533MHz. Pricing for that chip wasn’t immediately available.
More information about Motorola’s PowerPC chips is on the Web at http://www.motorola.com/smartnetworks/.
Motorola, in Schaumburg, Ill., can be reached at http://www.mot.com/.