From: joeles@cup.portal.com (Joel Edward Swan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: A1200 - 68020EC ??
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 00:27:17 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
  <Bz47A8.70G@news.cs.andrews.edu>

>In article <1992Dec11.093004.10703@walter.cray.com> walterb@sequoia.cray.com (
W
>alter Boese Jr.) writes:
>>
>>What does the 'EC' in 68020 mean foe the Amiga A1200.
>
>The EC in the 68EC020 is the EConomy version of the 68020.
>
>>How can you economize (sp) a chip that is pretty basic to begin with?
>
>By removing the MMU.

But the 020 doesn't have an MMU to remove.  You use an external MMU with the
020.

>
>>What great features can you remove?
>
>The MMU.

See above.


>>And if they did remove something, WHY?  The 68020 is getting outdated
>
>WHY?  To reduce cost.

Partly.  Mostly to give the company another level of pricing structure.
Once the 020 manufacturing is stabilized, it can cost a lot for them to
actually design and tool up to manufacture ANOTHER chip.  A thousandth of a
gram of gold for some extra wires and a bit of silicon and a different chip
case material and some basic case assembly doesn't cost that much more once
the design is finished.

>
>>already, why degrade more than its age already has?
>
>It has not been degraded.  When the 68020 was made, the 68EC020 was also
>made.  Not because Motorolla wanted to degrade a chip but to produce a
>Microprocessor that is powerful for many applications that did not need the
>Memory Management Unit.  After all why would manufacturers buy an expensive

Again, the 020 doesn't have a MMU built in.

>chip if they aren't going to use the features that they paid for.

The manufacturer is now able to charge MORE for a more capable chip, not
based on the difference of how much the chip costs to produce, but because
it "has more features than our 'other' chip."  Otherwise the 020 would cost
as much as the EC020.  It's all marketing.  Give them a "cheaper" version so
you can charge more for the preferred version.

At least this is what I've been told by a motorola chip designer I know.
(I'm sure you'll understand why his name will remain anonymous :-)

>>Walter Boese Jr.
>>walterb@sequoia.cray.com
>>
>>
>
>Just my $0.02 worth.  Don't take this as gospel.  This is just what I gather
>from the random information I get from the net.

That's exactly what the marketeers hope :-)

>
>Edsel
>--
>______________________________________________________________________________
_
>_
>|    Procrastination is my sin          | Edsel Adap
>|    It brings me naught but sorrow     | Computer Science / Mathematics Major
>|    I know that I should stop it       | Andrews University
>|    In fact I will -- Tomorrow!        |
>|                         -Gloria Pitzer| adap@cs.andrews.edu
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>-
>

-Joel
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  / Joel E. Swan....Pres./...Media Specialties, Ltd., Oak Forest, IL.USA  /
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/ Portal ID: joeles..../...joeles@cup.portal.com                        /
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