It appears that Motorola is stretching its credibility somewhat by claiming that its new PowerPC G4 chips are built using a 0.15 micron design rule. Motorola is actually using a different micron measurement from major competitors such as IBM Corp and Intel Corp.
There are two measurements that can be used when measuring the micron design rule, the l-drawn measurement and the l-effective measurement. The l-effective measurement is always smaller than the l-drawn measurement, the industry standard is to use the larger l-drawn measurement. However, a spokesperson confirmed that Motorola was using the l-effective measurement when claiming that the G4 was built on a 0.15 micron process. The l-drawn measurement on the G4 – which Motorola is supplying to Apple Computer Corp for its new desktop G4 – would actually be around 0.21 micron. By way of comparison, IBM’s new PowerPC 440 has an l-drawn measurement of 0.18 and an l-effective measurement of 0.12.
An industry insider said that Motorola was taking a chance with its own credibility by using a different measurement from IBM, Intel and others. The measurement is not the industry standard, he said, they’re not comparing apples with apples. The news puts Motorola’s claims that their future G5 chips will be built on a 0.10 micron process into a new light. And by which standard will Motorola measure its upcoming silicon?
