NexGen Microsystems Inc, the San Jose, California company backed by Compaq Computer Corp and Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA to develop a chip set that emulates the Intel 80386 and 80486 architecture but delivers much more power, is reportedly only a few months away from bringing out its first products, an eight-chip set dubbed the F86, and a 64-bit bus for use with it. But the company may have a very narrow window of opportunity to exploit the development, because the set is claimed to offer only twice the performance of the 80486 – and 50% more than the RISC in the Sun Microsystems Inc Sparcstation 2 – but Intel Corp itself is only a few months away from launching the 80586, and that is expected to deliver four times the power of the 80486 (CI No 1,603). NexGen expects to have chip sets ready by mid-year; Intel is talking of computers using the 80586 appearing next year. The 64-bit NexBus is claimed to offer peak throughput of 267Mbytes per second and sustained performance of 150Mbps. Edgcore Technology tried to pull a similar trick with a chip set to emulate the Motorola Inc 68020, but that was killed by arrival of the 68040.
