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The K6 microprocessor was launched by AMD in 1997. The main advantage of this particular microprocessor is that it was designed to fit into existing desktop designs for Pentium
Pentium

Introduced on March 22, 1993, the original Pentium was the first superscalar x86 architecture microprocessor. Its fifth-generation x86 microarchitecture was a direct extension of the 80486 architecture with dual integer pipeline s, a faster FPU unit, wider data bus, and features for further reduced address calculation latency....
 branded CPUs. It was marketed as a product which could perform as well as its Intel Pentium II equivalent but at a significantly lower price.






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Amd K6 Logo
The K6 microprocessor was launched by AMD in 1997. The main advantage of this particular microprocessor is that it was designed to fit into existing desktop designs for Pentium
Pentium

Introduced on March 22, 1993, the original Pentium was the first superscalar x86 architecture microprocessor. Its fifth-generation x86 microarchitecture was a direct extension of the 80486 architecture with dual integer pipeline s, a faster FPU unit, wider data bus, and features for further reduced address calculation latency....
 branded CPUs. It was marketed as a product which could perform as well as its Intel Pentium II equivalent but at a significantly lower price. The K6 had a considerable impact on the PC market and presented Intel with a serious competition.

Background


The AMD K6 is a superscalar
Superscalar

A superscalar Central processing unit architecture implements a form of parallel computer called instruction level parallelism within a single processor....
 Pentium
Pentium

Introduced on March 22, 1993, the original Pentium was the first superscalar x86 architecture microprocessor. Its fifth-generation x86 microarchitecture was a direct extension of the 80486 architecture with dual integer pipeline s, a faster FPU unit, wider data bus, and features for further reduced address calculation latency....
-class microprocessor
Microprocessor

A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a central processing unit on a single integrated circuit . The first microprocessors emerged in the early 1970s and were used for electronic calculators, using Binary-coded decimal arithmetic on 4-bit Word ....
, manufactured by AMD, which superseded the K5
AMD K5

The K5 was Advanced Micro Devices first X86 architecture processor to be developed entirely in-house. Introduced in March 1996, its primary competition was Intel Corporation Pentium microprocessor....
. It was co-developed by Vinod Dham
Vinod Dham

Vinod Dham is an Indian inventor and venture capitalist.Coming to India during Partition from Rawalpindi, Dham's father joined the army as a civilian....
, lead designer of the Pentium processor
Pentium

Introduced on March 22, 1993, the original Pentium was the first superscalar x86 architecture microprocessor. Its fifth-generation x86 microarchitecture was a direct extension of the 80486 architecture with dual integer pipeline s, a faster FPU unit, wider data bus, and features for further reduced address calculation latency....
. The AMD K6 is based on the Nx686 microprocessor that NexGen
NexGen

NexGen was a private semiconductor company that designed x86 microprocessors until it was purchased by AMD in 1996. Like competitor Cyrix, NexGen was a fabless design house that designed its chips but relied on other companies for production....
 was designing when it was acquired by AMD. Despite the name implying a design evolving from the K5
AMD K5

The K5 was Advanced Micro Devices first X86 architecture processor to be developed entirely in-house. Introduced in March 1996, its primary competition was Intel Corporation Pentium microprocessor....
, it is in fact a totally different design that was created by the NexGen team and adapted after the AMD purchase. The K6 processor included a feedback dynamic instruction reordering mechanism, MMX instructions, and a floating-point unit (FPU). It was also made pin-compatible
Pin-compatibility

In electronics, a pin-compatible device, such as a logic gate , Computer data storage or microprocessor, is one that has the same functions assigned to the same particular pins....
 with Intel's Pentium, enabling it to be used in the widely available "Socket 7
Socket 7

Socket 7 is a physical and electrical specification for an x86-style Central processing unit socket on a personal computer motherboard. The socket supersedes the earlier Socket 5, and accepts Pentium microprocessors manufactured by Intel, as well as compatibles made by Cyrix/IBM, AMD, Integrated Device Technology and others....
"-based motherboards. Like the Nx686 and Nx586 before it, the K6 translated the Pentium compatible x86 instruction set
X86 instruction listings

The x86 instruction set has undergone numerous changes over time. Most of them were to add new functionality to the instruction set....
 to RISC-like micro-instructions. A later variation of the K6 CPU, K6-2
AMD K6-2

The K6-2 was an x86 microprocessor introduced by Advanced Micro Devices on May 28, 1998, and available in speeds ranging from 266 to 550 Megahertz....
, added floating point
Floating point

In computing, floating point describes a system for numerical representation in which a String of digits represents a rational number.The term floating point refers to the fact that the radix point can "float": that is, it can be placed anywhere relative to the Significant figures of the number....
-based SIMD instructions, called 3DNow!
3DNow!

3DNow! is the trade name of a multimedia extension created by AMD for its processors, starting with the K6-2 in 1998. It is an addition of SIMD instructions to the traditional x86 instruction set, designed to improve a central processing unit's ability to perform the vector processing requirements of many graphic-intensive applications....
.

The K6 was originally launched in April 1997, running at speeds of 166 and 200 MHz. It was followed by a 233 MHz version later in 1997. Initially, the AMD K6 processors used a Pentium II-based performance rating (PR2) to designate their speed. The PR2 rating was dropped because the rated frequency of the processor was the same as the real frequency. The release of the 266 MHz version of this chip was not until the second quarter of 1998 when AMD was able to move to the 0.25 micrometre manufacturing process. The lower voltage and higher multiplier of the K6-266 meant that it was not 100% compatible with some Socket 7 motherboards, similar to the later K6-2 processors. The final iteration of the K6 design was released in May 1998 running at 300 MHz.

Many viewed the K6 and the acquisition of NexGen as the moment that AMD was put back into the Intel compatible processor market. The actual K6 AMD had been designing was anemic compared to NexGen's design. With the buyout of NexGen, AMD was able to come back into the game with a processor that could perform competitively with Intel's Pentium II.

Models

Amd K6 166alr
Amd K6 2 300

K6 (Model 6)

  • 8.8 million transistors in 350 nm
  • L1-Cache: 32 + 32 KB (Data + Instructions)
  • MMX
  • Socket 7
    Socket 7

    Socket 7 is a physical and electrical specification for an x86-style Central processing unit socket on a personal computer motherboard. The socket supersedes the earlier Socket 5, and accepts Pentium microprocessors manufactured by Intel, as well as compatibles made by Cyrix/IBM, AMD, Integrated Device Technology and others....
  • Front side bus
    Front side bus

    In personal computers, the Front Side Bus is the bus that carries data between the central processing unit and the Northbridge .Depending on the processor used, some computers may also have a back side bus that connects the CPU to the CPU cache....
    : 66 MHz
  • First release: April 2, 1997
  • VCore: 2.9 V (166/200) 3.2/3.3 V (233)
  • Clockrate: 166, 200, 233 MHz


K6 "Little Foot" (Model 7)

  • CPUID
    CPUID

    The CPUID opcode is a processor supplementary instruction for the x86 architecture. It was introduced by Intel in the early 1990s for later steppings of the Intel 80486 chip, and fully rolled out at the introduction of the Pentium MMX processor....
    : Family 5, Model 7, Stepping 0
  • 8.8 million transistors in 250 nm
  • L1-Cache: 32 + 32 KB (Data + Instructions)
  • MMX
  • Socket 7
    Socket 7

    Socket 7 is a physical and electrical specification for an x86-style Central processing unit socket on a personal computer motherboard. The socket supersedes the earlier Socket 5, and accepts Pentium microprocessors manufactured by Intel, as well as compatibles made by Cyrix/IBM, AMD, Integrated Device Technology and others....
  • Front side bus
    Front side bus

    In personal computers, the Front Side Bus is the bus that carries data between the central processing unit and the Northbridge .Depending on the processor used, some computers may also have a back side bus that connects the CPU to the CPU cache....
    : 66 MHz
  • First release: January 6, 1998
  • VCore: 2.2 V
  • Clockrate: 200, 233, 266, 300 MHz


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