Some interesting Facts about the IDT WinChip's
RISC Architecture
The design of the WinChip was quite different from other processors of the time. Instead of a large gate count and die area, IDT, using its experience from the RISC processor market, created a small and electrically efficient processor similar to the 80486, because of its single pipeline and in-order execution microarchitecture. It was of much simpler design than that of its competition, such as AMD K5/K6 and Intel Pentium II, which were superscalar and based on dynamic translation to buffered micro-operations with advanced instruction reordering (out of order execution).
Deployment
WinChip was, in general, designed to perform well with popular applications that didn't do many (if any) floating point calculations. This included operating systems of the time and the majority of software used in businesses. It was also designed to be a drop-in replacement for the more complex, and thus more expensive, processors it was competing with. This allowed IDT/Centaur to take advantage of an established system platform (Intel's Socket 7).
Limitations
Although the small die size and low power-usage made the processor notably inexpensive to manufacture, it never gained much market share. WinChip C6 was a competitor to the Intel Pentium and Pentium MMX, Cyrix 6x86, and AMD K5/K6. It performed adequately, but only in applications that used little floating point math. Its floating point performance was well below that of the Pentium, being similar to the Cyrix 6x86.[3]
The WinChip 2 added a 3DNow! processing unit to strengthen floating point performance, but its 3DNow! unit was not as fast as that in AMD K6-2.[4] This successor targeted the Intel Pentium II, Cyrix MII, and AMD K6-2 processors as competitors.
Closing Call
The industry's move away from Socket 7 and the release of the Intel Celeron processor signalled the end of the WinChip. In 1999, the Centaur Technology division of IDT was sold to VIA. Although VIA initially branded processors as "Cyrix," the company initially used technology similar to WinChip with its Cyrix III line.
RISC Architecture
The design of the WinChip was quite different from other processors of the time. Instead of a large gate count and die area, IDT, using its experience from the RISC processor market, created a small and electrically efficient processor similar to the 80486, because of its single pipeline and in-order execution microarchitecture. It was of much simpler design than that of its competition, such as AMD K5/K6 and Intel Pentium II, which were superscalar and based on dynamic translation to buffered micro-operations with advanced instruction reordering (out of order execution).
Deployment
WinChip was, in general, designed to perform well with popular applications that didn't do many (if any) floating point calculations. This included operating systems of the time and the majority of software used in businesses. It was also designed to be a drop-in replacement for the more complex, and thus more expensive, processors it was competing with. This allowed IDT/Centaur to take advantage of an established system platform (Intel's Socket 7).
Limitations
Although the small die size and low power-usage made the processor notably inexpensive to manufacture, it never gained much market share. WinChip C6 was a competitor to the Intel Pentium and Pentium MMX, Cyrix 6x86, and AMD K5/K6. It performed adequately, but only in applications that used little floating point math. Its floating point performance was well below that of the Pentium, being similar to the Cyrix 6x86.[3]
The WinChip 2 added a 3DNow! processing unit to strengthen floating point performance, but its 3DNow! unit was not as fast as that in AMD K6-2.[4] This successor targeted the Intel Pentium II, Cyrix MII, and AMD K6-2 processors as competitors.
Closing Call
The industry's move away from Socket 7 and the release of the Intel Celeron processor signalled the end of the WinChip. In 1999, the Centaur Technology division of IDT was sold to VIA. Although VIA initially branded processors as "Cyrix," the company initially used technology similar to WinChip with its Cyrix III line.
