Milpitas, California-based NexGen Microsystems Inc, where Compaq Computer Corp is an investor, has finally landed its foundry agreement with IBM Corp: IBM Microelectronics will fabricate the iAPX-86-compatible NexGen Nx586 processor and the Nx587 floating point co-processor and sell the parts to NexGen. It appears that at this stage at least, this is a foundry-only agreement: there is no word of IBM making the parts, or derivatives, for its own use. NexGen says it has been working closely with IBM for nearly two years to prepare the Nx586 family of processors for volume production. The Nx586 family of processors is claimed to be the first to combine 586-class performance with iAPX-86 binary software compatibility at a significantly lower price than Intel’s Pentium processor. NexGen reckons its processors combine the five key performance elements also found in Pentium plus three major advances including NexGen’s patented RISC86 microarchitecture; they will be fabricated in 0.5 micron CMOS.
