Ferranti Computer Systems Ltd is the first major UK company to declare for Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s challenging new reduced instruction set microprocessor, the Am29000. Ferranti is to use the chip in a new top-end version of its VARS Variable Attribute Raster Graphics System line of graphics display controllers that are sold in Europe and US. Ferranti says it chose the Am29000 because it reckons it is the most powerful commercially available microproc essor in the world today, adding that the pipelined high-performance RISC architecture allows it to function as a traditional CPU or a microcontroller. The Am29000 is eminently suitable for the computation intensive graphics and data base applications that our product is designed for, the company added. Six other companies of compar able size to Ferranti or larger have committed to the new AMD chip.
