Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!mips!mark
From: mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Microprocessors: waste & utilization
Keywords: ... have made some measurements ...
Message-ID: <31286@obiwan.mips.COM>
Date: 13 Nov 89 16:04:25 GMT
Reply-To: mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson)
Lines: 26


   > ... on the Berkeley RISC I and II chips, between 6 and 10 percent
   > of the chip area was used for decoding and control logic.  Compare
   > this with a figure of 50-60% on a 68000 or Z8000 ...
   >
   > I think it would be quite easy to get more than a 1k cache out
   > of 40-54% of the chip size.  After all, if each 1k of cache size
   > takes even 40% of the chip's area, how would you get a 32k (or,
   > for that matter, 31k) cache on a chip in the first place?


What percent of the die area of a microprocessor should be devoted to
*transistors*?  It's under 100%, because some area is consumed by
non-transistor essential things like interconnect wires, bonding pads,
power busses, etc.

How much?   Less than 1 pecent?  More than 80%?

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-- 
 -- Mark Johnson	
 	MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
	(408) 991-0208    mark@mips.com  {or ...!decwrl!mips!mark}