SGS-THOMSON PRESS BRIEFING STx86 Microprocessors

SGS-THOMSON is a broad range semiconductor supplier with sales of US$2.64 billion in 1994. In May 1994, SGS-THOMSON decided to enter the market for x86 microprocessors, whose main application is the main processor for all IBM-compatible PCs. A new organization, called the PC Micro Division, has been formed to manage this product range. Our entry into this market, follows an agreement between SGS-THOMSON and Cyrix Inc., based in Richardson, Texas. Under this agreement, SGS-THOMSON manufactures processors developed by Cyrix for its own use and is able to sell STx86 products under its own name.

x86 Microprocessor Market and SGS-THOMSON's Position

Figure 1 : Market size,1992-2000

After only 12 months in the competitive 486 market, SGS-THOMSON have produced more than a million 486 microprocessors. We have also helped our x86 partner, Cyrix, set production records during that period.

A growing STx86 portfolio

The ST486DX family

Table2 : ST486DX family

	ST486DX	ST486DX2	ST486DX4
Instruction set	ST486DX	ST486DX2	ST486DX4
Pin-out	ST486DX	ST486DX2	ST486DX4
Cache*	8kbyte	8kbyte	8kbyte
Clock speed at 5V	33, 40 & 50MHz	25/50, 33/66 and 40/80MHz with internal doubler	-
Clock speed at 3V	25 & 33MHz	5/50, 33/66 and 40/80**MHz with internal doubler	25/75, 33/100 & 40/120MHz with internal tripler
'Green' SMM	YES	YES	YES
Package	168-pin CPGA 208-pin PQFP	168-pin CPGA 208-pin PQFP	168-pin CPGA 168-pin PPGA 208-pin PQFP
Second source	Intel, AMD, Cyrix & IBM	Intel, AMD, TI, Cyrix & IBM	Intel, AMD, Cyrix & IBM

* Write-back & Write-through

All SGS-THOMSON STx86 processors are completely compatible with applications designed for DOS, WindowsÖ , OS/2Ö and UNIXÖ.

Market trends

We forecast a declining but still strong market for the ST486DX products (see figure 2 below) with 100MHz volume shipment to become the volume leader from Q495 to Q296. The demand for 486 CPUs is now seeing the start of the demand in applications other than PCs, wherever the usage of x86 compatible software is requested. The market is also characterized by the demand of new packages as the classic x86 packages require large footprint and are now at the limit of thermal dissipation. For 586 and 686 class products will see their market mainly in the evolution of the Personal Computers and Servers. Much of this will be fueled by Multimedia applications and platforms and such evolution includes machines that we can only name "digital convergence machines" as of today. Those will be the merge of the technologies present today in TVs, stereos, PCs and telecommunication equipements.

Figure 2 : x86 Market size forecast in Millions of units

Source: SGS-THOMSON NVG

Future STx86 developments

The ST486 products are currently being manufactured in our plants in Carrolton, Texas, and in June 1995, the first ST486 wafers were processed in our new 200mm, fabrication plant in Phoenix, Arizona. As this new plant will be largely devoted to the production of STx86 processors, it will provide SGS-THOMSON with an order of magnitude in capacity increase. To extend the product range, two major developments are planned - a PentiumTM-class processor and Super ASIC versions of existing processors. We will offer an ASIC core of our ST486DX device for the integration on silicon of application specific equipments. As part of our agreement with Cyrix, we are manufacturing its next-generation processor, currently called the 6x86 as well as the current 5x86. The 6x86, the best processor to run Windows 95, is a superscalar, superpipelined processor with a 64-bit internal organization. Other features include a 16kbyte unified cache, seven-stage pipeline and floating point unit - all operating at 100MHz and up. To meet the needs of customers who need x86 compatibility, but want silicon solutions optimized for their applications, SGS-THOMSON has a design team that will develop versions of the STx86 tailored to certain applications. Because of SGS-THOMSON's ASIC expertise in other disciplines, we have the capability to integrate a wide range of different functions, depending on the customer's requirements. These functions could include digital signal processors, graphics, video or audio. This trends is summarized on the figure below and best highlighted by the PC consumerization cycle.

Figure 3 : The PC consumerization cycle

As the PC becomes more and more a consumer product, it must reflect the different requirements of the consumer - one of which is lower cost. One of the ways in which SGS-THOMSON is helping to address this is through innovative packaging for x86 microprocessors. With its expertize in packaging, the company has developed and patented two new packages - plastic pin grid arrays (PPGAs) and power plastic PGAs (P3GAs). These offer the same pin out as existing ceramic pin grid array (CPGA) packages, but offer significantly lower cost and greater heat dissipation performance.

A Commitment to PCs

STx86 microprocessors complement a vast family of SGS-THOMSON devices that are raising performance standards in every area of the PC. For example, ST devices can be found on PC motherboards , in monitors, disk drives and multimedia add-ons. In fact, there are probably more SGS-THOMSON chips in more PCs than any other x86 manufacturer. We can offer customers a rich product portfolio for computer and multimedia applications, ranging from ultra-fast burst RAMs, to MPEG decoder ICs.

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