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EXPONENTIAL AIMS TO TAKE POWERPC LEAD WITH NEW SUPERFAST CHIPS
(December 4th 1995) Exponential Technology (PowerPC News 35) claims
to have a revolutionary BiCMOS design process that will enable it to
build PowerPC chips far faster than anything that IBM or Motorola
have in the pipeline. The San Jose, California-based company, backed
to the tune of $14m by Apple Computer and a collection of venture
capitalists and private individuals, has negotiated the right to
build its own PowerPC chip and says that its first product will tape
out early next year with volume production following in early '97.
Exponential says its PowerPC processors will offer twice the
performance of CMOS for the same die size - possibly better. The
first processor will be a functional equivalent of the 604, and
though the company is being careful not to quote clock speeds, 'twice
the performance' would imply a 300MHz-400MHz part. One source outside
the company was talking about 700MHz parts last month. The large
majority of the chip's logic circuit will be built from bipolar
circuitry, with CMOS used for the onboard cache.
Despite early rumours, the company says that it is not involved in
building Intel-emulation hardware into its PowerPC clones.
Traditionally, Bipolar silicon technology (as opposed to CMOS), has
been the province of mainframe manufacturers - it can switch faster
than CMOS, with a consequent improvement in processor clock speeds.
Unfortunately bipolar has the reputation of being power-hungry,
expensive to manufacture and bulky - CMOS components can be packed
more closely on the processor. Consequently, even mainframe
manufacturers have switched to CMOS-based processors as these have
become faster.
BiCMOS, as used by Intel in its initial Pentium designs, aims to
bring the best of both worlds by introducing relatively small amounts
of bipolar logic into the speed-critical areas of a CMOS processor. .
However, according to Exponential, this approach has its draw-backs.
Exponential claims that this conventional bipolar-on- CMOS approach
results in a "relatively weak form of bipolar logic suitable only for
building small-to-medium size logic functions and driving long
wires".
An alternative approach - placing small amounts of CMOS onto a
predominantly bipolar chip has languished, mainly because of the
previously mentioned size and energy draw-backs. This is a shame
since a fast bipolar chip with onboard CMOS cache and support
circuitry could be a winner.
Exponential claims to have cracked the problem by discovering a way
to design bipolar circuitry roughly equivalent to CMOS in size and
energy consumption; in particular, it contends, since CMOS elements
tend to grow in size anyway as clock speeds increase. The company has
applied for 18 patents covering bipolar design methodologies, tools
and also chip packaging. So far eight have been granted.
There is no reason why the process shouldn't be applied to build
BiCMOS variants of any microprocessor and if the company manages to
deliver on its promises its technology will be attractive to a number
of chip makers. However, Exponential CEO, Rick Shriner (formerly VP
of core technology at Apple) says that there are no plans to license
the technology out, and anyway "we've still got to prove it". No,
instead Exponential intends to sell its products on the merchant
market, in competition with IBM and Motorola at the high end.
The company does not have its own chip fabrication plant, and is
unwilling to divulge who will be making them, other than to say that
the fab will be off-shore and the company isn't a US one. The smart
money has got to be on Hitachi, which already has some ill-defined
deal to build PowerPC processors and has also been banging on about
its innovative BiCMOS fabrication technology. (PowerPC News 29/1335).
Exponential sales direction Ivonne Valdez denies, however that the
company is unduly tied to its nameless manufacturing partner -
Motorola and IBM, among others have similar manufacturing
capabilities already, she suggests.
Exactly how IBM and Motorola will react to the competition will be
interesting to watch; as we went to press they had no comment. Rick
Shriner says that relations are very good, but acknowledges that if
he had the time he could "talk all year" about the negotiations
required to get the rights to build the PowerPC variant. Neither IBM
nor Motorola are being forthcoming about their thoughts on
Exponential. The third partner in the PowerPC triumvirate, Apple, is
obviously delighted at the prospect of competition. It was an
original investor in the firm when it was founded in the summer of
1994, and came back for second bite of the cherry in a subsequent
funding round. "They were looking for someone to put a flag in the
ground" in terms of PowerPC performance.
Exponential's financial footing is nearly as hazy as its initial
product plans. $14m has been raised in two rounds of funding - the
first round saw Apple accompanied by venture capitalists, Venrock
Associates and a group of undisclosed private investors. The second
round saw the two companies joined by Itochu, Innotech, Nazem and Co
and Woodside fund. One investor is Jean Louis Gassee, ex of Apple and
now head of Be Inc. But whether Gassee is involved on Be's behalf,
privately or through the Innotech venture company, was not clear as
we went to press. To date Exponential says it has spent half of its
funds and expects to start a second round of funding after tape-out
of its first product next spring.
So can they do it? Exponential themselves point out that the
technology is untested, however the names behind it are
impressive.The company was founded by George Taylor and Jim Blomgren.
Taylor was formerly director of experimental architecture at Sun
Microsystems Laboratories, Blomgren also worked at Sun Labs on ECL
SPARC processor design and at Chips and Technology on 386/486
processors. Exponential's Chairman Gordon Campbell was also at Chips
and Technology - as CEO.