Cyrix Corp and Texas Instruments Inc each joined Advanced Micro Devices Inc in making Intel Corp’s life a little harder, with Texas introducing a low-cost version of its 80486DX2-class microprocessor. The TI486DX2 costs $80, enabling personal computer manufacturers to make high-performance personal computers for less than $1,000, Texas says, noting that chips in this class normally sell for more than $100. Samples are out now with volume in September. Cyrix Corp, Richardson, Texas announced the technology behind its 5×86 processor family, which was previously code-named the M1sc architecture. The new 5×86 architectural core is claimed to rival Pentium-class performance and has been designed to drive performance up and power consumption down, achieved by implementing only the most performance-critical features of Pentium-class chips. The 5×86 core has 64-bit internal architecture, branch prediction, multiple operations per clock via a decoupled load-store unit and data forwarding combined with an 80-bit floating point unit and 16Kb unified write-back cache. The 5×86 processor family roadmap includes a full 64-bit version in future. Initial production of the Cyrix 5×86 at 100MHz is expected next quarter at $147 for 1,000-up.
