Motorola Inc’s semiconductor division will begin sampling the 68060 next generation 32-bit microprocessor in the third quarter. Motorola killed its intended predecessor, the 68050, last year after it decided the development wasn’t advanced enough to justify the expenditure preparing it for production. The 68060 will initially be offered in two versions, running at 50MHz and 66MHz. The company claims that the thing will execute 100 MIPS and 15 MGFLOPS, processing more than one but fewer than two instructions per cycle. The 68060 is a static, modular, superscalar and superpipelined part built using 0.8-micron CMOS technology – BiCMOS techniques will be incorporated in the planned 68080 and 68100, Motorola says. The 68060 operates at 3.3V, features an integrated floating-point unit and it has two 8Kb caches on the chip. According to Motorola UK’s 68000 marketing manager, Neil Martin, the firm will ship 100,000 to 200,000 samples as early as July, with a suggested price tag of around $500 for the 50MHz part. There are no plans for a 64-bit 68000 design. Apple Computer Inc has already declared its interest in the chip and plans to introduce a 68060-based machine in the second quarter next year. Also expected in the 68000 complex instruction set family of microprocessors is a 250 to 350 MIPS 68080 due by 1995 and an 800 MIPS – probably the 68100 – by the year 2000.
