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The chip maker PMC-Sierra Inc. said yesterday that it would buy
Quantum Effect Devices Inc., a maker of microprocessors used in consumer electronics, in a stock swap worth $ 2.3 billion based on Tuesday's closing prices ... The deal will give PMC a strong presence in the design of high-speed networks
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controller and cache coherency. This product family was not successful due to being late to the market. The company was financially conservative during the time leading up to and after the company's initial public offering and would not fully staff the SOC project. One of the reasons for selling the
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The RM70XX series was the second product line sold directly by QED. It implemented a large 256 KB on-chip level 2 cache. The RM7000 was one of the first microprocessors to do so, especially within the embedded microprocessor market segment. It also implemented symmetric superscalar instruction issue
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The RM52XX series was the first product line sold directly by QED. The first of the series was a cost-reduced version of the R5000 with smaller caches and a different pin-out. The earlier RM52X0 devices had only 16 KB caches while the later RM52X1 devices had 32 KB caches. The RM523X devices had
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on
October 2000; at the time, Quantum Effect Devices was valued in a stock swap worth $ 2.3 billion according to one estimate. The company became the Microprocessor Products Division of PMC. The acquisition was done by stock exchange and was valued at $ 2.3 billion. The team completed the RM9x00
370:. For a while, this small and low cost device was one of the highest performance microprocessors on the market. While the initial target market of a MIPS laptop computer never materialized, this device found success in several markets. It was the first RISC processor used within a
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Several years later, in an attempt to increase product revenue, the company transformed itself to a product company selling its own line of MIPS microprocessors. At that time, the company changed its name to
Quantum Effect Devices. After successful products introductions like the
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The R5000 was commissioned by SGI. This device doubled the instruction and data caches to 32 KB. It implemented a high-performance, fully pipelined floating point unit with multiply–accumulate capability and a SRT divider. The device had a limited implementation of
493:, the name of this device was chosen to reflect its low-cost and low-power characteristics. Once those Apple projects were cancelled, Motorola stopped the development of the 603q even though QED had received first silicon samples and they were functional.
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product line while at PMC, but that product line was not successful in the marketplace. Most of the microprocessor core development team derived from QED was laid off as a group by PMC-Sierra in June 2005; the last few were laid off in
January 2006.
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The company name was attributed to Tom
Riordan. He believed that the company would survive to the age when semiconductor geometry dimensions would become so small that quantum effects would dominate circuit behavior.
590:
Quantum Effect
Devices, a company that develops embedded microprocessors for routers, network computers, set-top boxes and other equipment, closed at $ 56.50, compared with an offering price of $ 16.
362:, felt that the large device was too complicated and that a simpler implementation would give a better price/performance ratio. For that reason, the R4600 is a re-implementation of the 5-stage
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device. The R4650 was licensed by IDT and NKK who manufactured and sold the devices. The R4640 was the same chip but with the system bus restricted to 32-bits instead of 64-bits.
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with two integer execution units. The RM7061 device was a pin-compatible upgrade for the RM526X series. This product line was a very successful follow-on to the RM52XX products.
282:"Orion" microprocessor, proved to be successful in several embedded markets such as networking routers and arcade games. Subsequent projects were designed for companies such as
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32-bit system buses while RM526X had 64-bit system buses. This product line was very successful in the laser printer market, winning many accounts at printer companies such as
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540:. The SOC system interconnect was an in-house design with centralized storage for the transactions flowing through the SOC. Peripherals included a DDR
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company to PMC-Sierra was to fund these SOC projects. By that time, competitors like SiByte had already entered the market with equivalent devices.
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instruction issue in which one integer instruction and one floating-point instruction could be issued in one cycle. This device was used in the
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329:'s home PC and game machine designs. Neither of these designs were productized, so the PowerPC 603q never reached full production.
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on 1 February 2000. The initial stock price of $ 16 jumped to $ 56.50 on the first day of trading. The company was acquired by
17:
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performance. The R4700 improved on the repeat rate of floating point multiply instructions. This device was used inside the
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was added to ameliorate the longer branch latencies. Within the RM9x00, two Apollo cores were used to implement a
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The original product plan for QED was to build a MIPS microprocessor for a laptop computer. This was during the
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234:) instead of concentrating on building microprocessor chips which was MIPS' original mission. Soon after,
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The first QED microprocessor was the R4600. The founders of QED, who were previously involved with the
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They left MIPS at a time when the company was having a difficult time selling entire computer systems (
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low-end workstation. The R4700 was licensed by IDT and
Toshiba who manufactured and sold the devices.
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477:'s low-cost accounts including a home computer for students and a home video console game named
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machine. The R4650 achieved a smaller die area by cutting the caches in half, only implementing
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low-end workstations. The design was owned by SGI, which licensed the design to IDT and
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implemented by QED. The Apollo microprocessor core that was part of the RM9x00 had its
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would become mainstream. While that market never materialized, the first product, the
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The three founders, Tom
Riordan, Earl Killian and Ray Kunita, were senior managers at
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536:. These processor cores successfully achieved their operating frequency target of 1
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floating-point. This device was the first QED device that implemented the
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and the RM7000, under its own "RISCMark" label, the company had its
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481:. The 603q was basically the R4600 pipeline re-targeted for the
603:"COMPANY NEWS; PMC-SIERRA TO ACQUIRE QUANTUM FOR $ 2.3 BILLION"
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lengthened to 7 stages to enable higher operating frequencies.
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was a major funder and customer for the initial QED design.
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Underside view of QED RM7000 package with the die exposed
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Underside view of QED RM5230 package with the die exposed
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Technology companies based in the San
Francisco Bay Area
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Underside view of IDT R4700 package with the die exposed
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instructions, which enabled software functions such as
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Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States
581:. The New York Times: Business Day. February 2, 2000
544:, a SysAD bus controller, a boot bus controller, a
419:, who desired a cheaper implementation for a video
274:were building products in the hope that RISC-based
605:. The New York Times: Business Day. July 13, 2000
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615:and adds a missing component to its product line
489:was then the most power-efficient chip from the
696:Defunct computer companies of the United States
552:controller. A second generation device added a
681:Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2000
676:Manufacturing companies established in 1991
651:Manufacturing companies based in California
631:Quantum Effect Devices/Design at chipdb.org
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666:Companies based in Palo Alto, California
579:"3 Technology Issues Surge on Debut Day"
266:operating system. System companies like
435:. This device was used in the original
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164:design company incorporated in 1991 as
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671:Computer companies established in 1991
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691:2000 disestablishments in California
701:Defunct computer hardware companies
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686:1991 establishments in California
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389:games. The R4600 was licensed by
520:The RM9x00 family was the first
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415:The R4650 was commissioned by
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27:Microprocessor design company
321:microprocessor designed for
262:architectures for their new
154:Quantum Effect Devices, Inc.
31:Quantum Effect Devices, Inc.
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485:instruction set. Since the
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404:, who wanted a little more
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118:; 23 years ago
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48:Quantum Effect Design, Inc.
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473:and the target market was
400:The R4700 was targeted at
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530:Dynamic branch prediction
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270:and board companies like
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317:The PowerPC 603q was a
385:such as the first two
268:DeskStation Technology
364:Classic RISC pipeline
170:Palo Alto, California
166:Quantum Effect Design
87:Palo Alto, California
18:Quantum Effect Design
469:was commissioned by
258:to support multiple
429:multiply–accumulate
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276:personal computers
272:ShaBLAMM! Computer
168:. It was based in
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656:MIPS architecture
548:controller and a
542:memory controller
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116:October 2000
16:(Redirected from
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475:Apple Computer
406:floating point
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65:Semiconductor
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607:. Retrieved
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583:. Retrieved
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491:AIM alliance
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467:PowerPC 603q
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421:console game
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383:arcade games
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325:, meant for
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134:Acquired by
102:Earl Killian
53:Company type
487:PowerPC 603
448:superscalar
232:MIPS Magnum
99:Tom Riordan
640:Categories
609:2010-11-27
585:2010-11-27
565:References
343:PMC-Sierra
264:Windows NT
136:PMC-Sierra
105:Ray Kunita
437:Microsoft
433:softmodem
256:Microsoft
160:), was a
526:pipeline
471:Motorola
456:SGI Indy
410:SGI Indy
381:/Midway
323:Motorola
246:Business
142:Products
93:Founders
61:Industry
45:Formerly
511:Samsung
503:Lexmark
483:PowerPC
395:Toshiba
354:Devices
319:PowerPC
284:Toshiba
176:History
123:2000-10
121: (
113:Defunct
79: (
71:Founded
56:Private
479:Pippen
452:SGI O2
368:caches
335:RM5200
507:Ricoh
440:WebTV
379:Atari
360:R4000
312:R5000
300:R4650
292:R4700
280:R4600
465:The
454:and
393:and
306:and
286:and
260:RISC
131:Fate
81:1991
74:1991
558:PCI
546:DMA
538:GHz
522:SOC
460:NEC
417:NKK
402:SGI
391:IDT
339:IPO
314:).
308:NEC
304:SGI
302:),
296:NKK
288:IDT
252:ACE
240:IDT
236:SGI
158:QED
85:in
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20:)
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