MIPS Computer Systems Inc has quietly completed a set of specifications which outline the look of its next generation RISC part, and has been touting them round its licensees for approval, today’s edition of our sister paper Unigram.X reports. Called the R10000, the part is scheduled for 1994 delivery, and will follow the as-yet unannounced R5000, which is due next outyear. As it did with the R2000 and R4000 before it, MIPS will put together a completely new development environment or design database as it calls it, for this next generation microprocessor. The database strategy enables MIPS to produce subsequent iterations of a chip design requiring only 10% of the effort and resources that go into developing the core technology. That’s how the R3000 grew out of the R2000, and how the R5000 is being parented by the R4000. MIPS has undertaken to double the performance of successive iterations of its R series RISCs, and the R10000 will be no exception, according to MIPS’ chairman and chief executive, Bob Miller, who says my job is to maintain a two-to-one (better) price performance advantage over Intel. The R4000 is rated at 75 SPECmarks now and is expected to hit 110 SPECmarks by the end of the year. The R5000, due mid-1993, will clock at 100MHz and do around 160 SPECmarks in its initial guise, Miller claims. Given these performance marks, the R10000 should, by MIPS’ own estimations, reach at least 320 SPECmarks. Miller says only that it will be an interesting number. MIPS’ troubled R6000 ECL part gets no such treatment there will be no R8000 – though enhancements to the existing chip are planned.
