Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: Question on pre-production 68030's.
Message-ID: <9904@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 1 Mar 90 03:35:30 GMT
References: <9613@unix.SRI.COM>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 34

In article <9613@unix.SRI.COM> henry@ginger.sri.com (Henry A. Pasternack) writes:

>I noticed that the part number is XC68030RC25A, not "MC",
>which, I would guess, makes it a pre-production chip.  

>   I am tempted to return the part because it was represented
>to me as a "68030", which I suppose it is, in some sense.  On
>the other hand, I have no idea what kinds minor functional 
>problems this chip may have, if I am correct in interpreting
>the "XC" designation as meaning pre-release.

XC certainly indicates that the part's design may not have been
validated when the part was actually made, but it doesn't necessarily
say anything bad about it either.  I don't recall the official 
Motorola line on what it means, but I've never found it a big
problem.  I have an unmarked, supposedly room temperature 25MHz
68030 around here somewhere that's never shown any bugs (and for
that matter, works just fine in a hot system, though I suppose the
room temperature rating is more an indication of where it may be
expected to be a fully speced 25MHz part).  Motorola should have a
bug sheet on that part if there are any bugs, which I would think
pretty unlikely given my experience with early 68030s.

We got XC68851s for years after Motorola started making the part
and never found a problem there either, at least with the 68030
compatible instructions.

>-Henry


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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