The Microprocessor Report notes Alpha and StrongArm chip development teams have been weakened following the departure from DEC’s chip design teams of Dirk Meyer (to lead AMD’s K7 development); Jim Keller (AMD’s K8); Dan Lieberholz (Sun UltraSparc 5); and Alpha co-inventor Dick Sites, who also quit. Alpha is shorthanded, it believes, while trumpeting the next- generation EV7 21364’s revolutionary use of Direct RDRAM channels to pump data from main memory straight into the processor, reducing latency. While 21364 uses the current 21264 core, the key question for Compaq Computer Corp, the paper says, will be whether Arana, the fourth generation Alpha core, can match the success of the first three designs. Meantime, Intel Corp’s failure to endorse StrongArm for at least three months after acquiring it from DEC means most of the chip’s design team either didn’t transfer, or walked. Many of the team working on a second StrongArm core went off to Cadence, which now has its own problems. Intel has had to start over on a new second-generation core, now not due until 2000. It’s established second and third StrongArm development teams in an attempt to claw back ground. Former Somerset chief Mark McDermott gets charge of the latter.
