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- American Megatrends, Inc.
- Tech Tip #24.001
- 02/11/91
-
- Problem:
-
- Cyrix Fastmath EMC87 device does not work on Mark IV Screamer 33MHz
- motherboard, with external cache enabled.
-
-
- Solution:
-
- The EMC87 device is compatible to 80387 coprocessor protocol and
- executes reads and writes at zero wait states.
- Weitek, also a memory mapped device, allows one wait state for
- read/write operations.
- The areas where EMC87/Weitek devices are located must be
- noncached, on Mark IV motherboard, the external cache is always
- enabled, it is disabled when the cache logic determines that the
- current access is to a noncached area.
- Because of zero wait state restriction of EMC87, the point where
- the EMC87 device samples data, the PD bus is driven by the external
- cache.
-
- This problem was temporarily solved by AMI by giving data to the
- EMC87, at the point where to external cache is no longer valid.
- PAL U39 has been changed from H10E2404 to H20E2404. This PAL has
- not yet been released as an ECN.
-
- Cyrix will most probably eliminate this problem by adding a
- wait state on read/write operations (like Weitek) in the next
- silicon of EMC87 chip.