Digital Equipment Corporation Maynard, Massachusetts 01754-2571 Editorial contact: Lisa Lipson (508) 568-4352 DIGITAL EXTENDS ALPHA PERFORMANCE LEAD WITH SPEED UPGRADES TO ALPHA MICROPROCESSORS Alpha 21164 Up to 333MHz MAYNARD, Mass. -- October 2, 1995 -- The world's fastest microprocessors just got faster with the announcement today of speed upgrades to the Alpha 21164 (the BIPS chip) and Alpha 21064A microprocessors. Digital Equipment Corporation will now offer the Alpha 21164-333MHz chip, with estimated SPECint92 performance of 400 and SPECfp92 of 570, and the Alpha 21064A-300MHz chip, with estimated SPECint92 of 220 and SPECfp92 of 300. These high- performance chips, targeted initially at the high performance workstation and server markets, significantly outpace the competition. "Alpha microprocessors have consistently hit and often exceeded performance targets and delivery times since their introduction more than three years ago," stated Ed Caldwell, vice president, Digital Semiconductor, a Digital Equipment Corporation business. "The Alpha architecture is designed to deliver high performance in every generation and design upgrade. Today's announcement by Digital is an example of how we are able to push each successive Alpha generation to ever greater performance levels." Setting Industry Records Today's announcement shows the significant performance advantage of Alpha microprocessors. The Alpha 21164-333MHz processor significantly outperforms all other currently shipping or sampling chips. It performs integer intensive applications 1.7 to 2.9 times faster and floating point intensive applications 1.6 to 3.2 times faster than any available competitive processors. This difference is due in part to Digital Semiconductor's advanced, world-class manufacturing process and semiconductor design capabilities, which allow Digital to deliver a processor at a record-setting 333 MHz. Both the Alpha 21164-333MHz and the Alpha 21064A-300MHz microprocessors are sampling now and are pin-compatible with previously announced versions. They enable easy enhancement to existing systems. Chips Shipping/Sampling Today Digital Intel SGI HP Motorola Sun Alpha X86 MIPS PA-RISC PowerPC SPARC 21164 P6 VR4400 7200 604 UltraSPARC 333MHz 133MHz 250MHz 120MHz 133MHz 167MHz SPECint92 400 est. 200 est. 175 168.7 176 240 est. SPECfp92 570 est. 200 est. 178 269.2 157 350 est. Digital Semiconductor, a Digital Equipment Corporation business, headquartered in Hudson, Massachusetts, designs, manufactures and markets industry-leading semiconductor products including Alpha microprocessors and PCI peripheral chips for networking, bridging, and graphics/multimedia, as well as low-power StrongARM microprocessors under license from Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. Digital Semiconductor operates design centers in Hudson, Palo Alto, California; Austin, Texas; and Jerusalem, Israel. A new, $450 million fabrication facility in Hudson will begin revenue production in 1996. Mitsubishi Electric Company is a second source for Alpha microprocessors. Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated worldwide information systems. Digital's scalable Alpha platforms, storage, networking, software and services, together with industry-focused solutions from business partners, help organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace. #### Note to Editors: Digital, Digital Semiconductor, and the Digital logo are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. SPECint and SPECfp are trademarks of System Performance Evaluation Corporation. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. SGI and MIPS are registered trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc. HP and PA are registered trademarks of Hewlett-Packard Company. PowerPC is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Sun is a registered trademark and UltraSPARC is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. StrongARM is a trademark of Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. CORP/96/047 ============================================================================== Electronic Editorial Contact: lisa.lipson@hlo.mts.dec.com ============================================================================== Digital Press and Analysts News is sent as a courtesy to members of the press, analyst and consulting community. For subscription information please contact: Russ Jones Digital Equipment Corporation Voice: 415-853-2145 FAX: 415-853-2265 Internet: pr-news@pa.dec.com All Digital press releases, fact sheets and backgrounders are archived on ftp.digital.com in the /pub/Digital/info/pr-news directory. They are also available at http://www.digital.com/ on the World Wide Web. ==============================================================================