Edge Computers has launched a new range of VMEbus board-level processors based on its Motorola 68020-compatible gate arrays. The boards, aimed at the OEM and system integration markets come in above the Motorola 68020 and 68030 and are claimed to offer sustained performance of up to 55 MIPS. The Edge 2000 series uses custom-designed high density CMOS gate arrays implementing a complex instruction set – that of the 68020 – architecture. This VLSI design uses five application-specific chips and is offered in four versions, each of which will support 500 to 1,000 users. The 2000 has a proprietary 64-bit parity bus to provide 128M-byte per second system bandwidth, 60Mbyte-per-second aggregate input-output bandwidth, up to 1Gb global memory, and will support Multibus as well as VMEbus. The 2100 is a single processor version that offers 16 MIPS sustained performance, 22 MIPS peak; the dual processor 2200 offers 30 MIPS sustained 44 MIPS peak; the three processor vesrion offers 43 MIPS sustained – 66 peak; the top-end 2400 offers 55 MIPS sustained and 88 MIPS peak. The systems run Unix System V.2 and the integrated Pick and Unix operating system, Symetrix, from Edge subsidiary Toltec is available for the single processor version and will be ported to the others in due course. The Edge 2000 family will be available in the second quarter 1988 and will have an entry level price of $25,000 for the 2100 with 8Mb memory in OEM quantities. Edge’s European partner, Olivetti, is expected to sell the range in Europe, and is likely to use the boards in its top-end successor to its Linea Uno computer family.
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