Freescale unveils dual-core PowerPC architecture

Frankfurt - Freescale, Motorola's semiconductor subsidiary until July of this year, announced first details about its dual-core core strategy for the e600 PowerPC platform. Each processor will be clocked with more than 1.5 GHz, the company said Tuesday.

As AMD and Intel, Freescale also takes advantage of a dual-core approach to increase computing performance and limit increased power needs. The company unveiled its technology approach based on the 90nm SOI e600 core at the Smart Networks Developer Forum held in Frankfurt, Germany.

Named the MPC8641D Dual Core processor, both cores will work at more than 1.5 GHz, integrate two 1 MByte L2 caches (four times the cache currently available in MPC74xx PowerPC PowerPC chips) and dual AltiVec vector processing engines. The two cores are connected through an MPX bus at clocked at 667 MHz. In addition, the MPC8641D comes with an integrated dual memory controller that supports DDR and DDR2 memories.

System connectivity to peripherals is provided by a RapidIO serial fabric interface. The processor also receives four network ports supporting 10, 100 and 1000 Mbit.

According to Freescale, the MPC8641D device will operate in a "typical" power range between 15 and 25 Watts.

The company also announced the development of the integrated single-core processor MPC8641D as well as MPC7448 discrete processor, a lower-power successor to the popular MPC7447A PowerPC device, which will be clocked at speeds greater than 1.5 GHz, Freescale said. The MPC8641 will be pin-compatible to the dual core implementation.

The company said it will provide more details about all new processors at the Fall Processor Forum in San Jose, which takes place on October 5.