ALPHA: A TECHNOLOGY FOUNDATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY As the world approaches the 21st century, powerful factors are driving the industry toward new computing architectures. Power-hungry applications, such as molecular modeling, econometric forecasting, visualization, and imaging, are gobbling up compute cycles and storage space at a rapidly accelerating pace. Global networking and open computing are changing the ground rules for communications and integration of applications across geographies. At the same time, technologies are changing much more rapidly and unpredictably than they were even five years ago. In this environment, organizations have to look for more than evolutionary improvements within existing platforms to achieve their long-term goals and emerge as winners in tomorrow's markets. They need new technologies and computing architectures that are rich enough to deliver the performance and solution choices they require for the future, while protecting their investment in current technologies. Digital continually evaluates the needs of its customers and the market--for today and the future. During this process, Digital has identified key characteristics that are essential for an optimal computing architecture for the future. By the turn of the century organizations will find that a 64-bit architecture is essential. As computing demands increase, today's 32-bit architectures will limit current computing systems. Based on an historical "consumption" of 6/10ths of a bit per year, existing 32-bit architectures will soon run out of address space. However, moving from 32-bit to 64-bit addressing has a significant impact on software compatibility and represents a fundamental architecture change. In existing architectures, performance improvements are derived primarily from increases in clock speed. The future will demand more. Computing performance in the industry has improved by a factor of 100 over the past ten years. Given the ever-accelerating rate of technical advance- ment and demand for performance, it is likely that an architecture with a 25-year horizon will need to scale over a performance range of at least 1,000. Clock speed increases will not be enough. Processors will have to issue multiple instructions at the same time and multiple chips will have to be strung together to share the work. New architectures will be needed to optimize these capabilities. Architectures of the future will also need the ability to run any operating system and any language. Today's architectures are optimized for only one or two languages and operating systems. Speed barriers in today's architectures will also have to be eliminated. Most current architectures haven't anticipated the dramatic increase in chip speeds, especially in RISC chips. Inherent bottlenecks result, precluding efficient use of new technologies. In addition, customers will want performance based on world-class fabrication technologies. They will seek out architectures that are implemented in chips built by leading microprocessor manufacturers. Alpha, Digital's new computing architecture for the 21st century, incorporates all of these essential characteristics. It is designed to deliver lasting solutions that will endure over the next 25 years. Alpha computing products, based on this architecture, will help organizations manage their global operations, achieve reduced costs, comply with regulations, and share information with customers and suppliers. These products can help scientists, educators, health care professionals, engineers, and many others accomplish their work more easily, productively, and at a lower cost. Alpha's open approach will deliver solutions that encompass multivendor products in a global, distributed, and cost effective computing environment. Alpha represents Digital's commitment to be the technology and solutions leader in open computing through the 1990s and beyond. Alpha is an internal code name for three things. First, it is Digital's new, open, 64-bit Reduced Instruction Set (RISC) computing architecture. This advanced architecture provides very high levels of performance and reliability. It is open, scalable, and designed to endure over a period of 25 years or more. Second, Alpha is a single-chip implementation of the new architecture, offering double the speed of any commercially available competing technology today. And third, Alpha will be a family of systems, enabling technologies, and services that span the desktop to the data center. Investment protection is a key Alpha design feature. Through significant engineering efforts in hardware and software technologies, Digital will make it easy for customers--both VAX VMS and DECsystems OSF/1--to move smoothly to Alpha. This means that customers can satisfy their computing needs today from a wide range of Digital systems, and be assured of a clear and simple path to add Alpha systems to this environment as their needs change. A NEW ARCHITECTURE A computing architecture is a set of structural rules and interface standards for building computer systems with a similar look and feel. For example, IBM's System 360, Motorola's 68000, and Digital's PDP and VAX families of systems represent computing architectures. A computing architecture is important because it determines the limits of system performance and capacity, and is the basis for binary compatibility between products. Digital's Alpha architecture is a robust, long-lasting architecture that provides both superior price performance and binary compatibility. It is a powerful foundation that subsequent layers of computing technology can leverage to satisfy changing customer requirements. Digital's Alpha architecture incorporates flat 64-bit addressing that provides four billion times the address space of a 32-bit architecture. In addition to a virtually limitless address space, Alpha's high performance features, scalability, and "openness" make it the first architecture able to accommodate both technology and application changes through the next 25 years. Digital has already demonstrated its ability to develop an architecture with long-term viability that spans multiple generations of semiconductor technology innovation. Digital's VAX systems have offered binary compatibility and high performance across a broad range of systems for 15 years, and will continue to do so for years to come. Alpha will follow Digital's industry-leading tradition of evolution based on architectural compatibility. HIGH-SPEED PROCESSOR ON A CHIP Digital's new RISC microprocessor, the 21064-AA, is the first product to implement the Alpha architecture. With a clock speed of 150 MegaHertz, it is the world's fastest microprocessor. By comparison, the fastest RISC microprocessors available today are approaching only 100 MegaHertz. The first chip-level design of the Alpha architecture has demonstrated performance at 200 MHz, and Digital plans to offer versions of the chip at different speeds over time. The Alpha 21064-AA is a dual-issue processor--able to launch two instructions at once. It processes 64-bit virtual and physical addresses and 64-bit integers and floating point numbers. Digital manufactures the Alpha 21064-AA in state-of-the-art facilities in Hudson, Massachusetts and South Queensferry, Scotland using the company's fourth generation of complementary metal oxide semiconductor chip technology (CMOS-4). This advanced process technology is tuned to very high-speed complex functions with high-speed on-chip memory, distinguishing it from the manufacturing processes of merchant semiconductor manufacturers. In addition, the CMOS-4 process produces chips with very high reliability. Because Digital 21064-AA chips are produced to run at 3.3 volts compared to the 5.0 volts common throughout the industry, they use less power and run cooler, making them more reliable than microprocessors of comparable speed. Also, single-chip implementations such as the Digital 21064-AA microprocessor, are inherently more reliable than multiple-chip processors. Alpha's built-in scalability will be able to accommodate products from palmtop systems to supercomputers. Alpha is designed for a 1,000 times performance improvement--up to 400 billion instructions per second--during its lifetime. It can work as a single chip at the low end or with hundreds or thousands of chips in a massively parallel processing environment at the high end. Very few organizations rely on a single operating environment. Different styles of computing--desktop, workstations, datacenter-- demand differing operating environments for optimal performance. Alpha can be optimized for any operating system or language, giving customers the flexibility to satisfy their application requirements effectively. The Alpha architecture includes the concept of a Privileged Architecture Library (PALcode) which is similar to the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) in a personal computer. PALcode is a privileged library of operating-system-specific software routines that automatically perform functions such as context switching, interrupts, exceptions, and memory management. PALcode makes Alpha technology- independent and software-neutral, allowing Alpha to run different operating systems efficiently. Today, Alpha runs VMS and OSF/1. Digital is actively engaged in discussions about making other popular high-volume operating environments available on Alpha. AN ENDURING TECHNOLOGY In the future, organizations will increase their demands for open computing and integration of products from multiple vendors. At the same time, suppliers in the computing industry will require massive investments in core technologies to assure success. There will be a growing number of alliances and collaborations in many areas as suppliers realize that they can't do everything alone. The industry will continue to converge and only a few computing architectures will survive. Digital has the leadership competency in core technologies and the resources to ensure that Alpha will endure. Digital's 35 years of experience in computer architecture and systems design made the Alpha architecture possible. Digital's semiconductor group, responsible for Alpha chip design and delivery, has a successful fifteen-year track record, and includes some of the industry's most experienced chip design and fabrication experts. In addition, Digital's extensive experience in networking, compilers, and enabling software, such as Network Application Support (NAS) and CASE tools, will contribute to a broad set of Alpha product offerings in the coming years. To achieve the broadest possible use of the Alpha architecture with the widest range of operating environments, Digital is entering into new alliances. These will include licensing agreements with semiconductor manufacturers for the Alpha architecture as well as relationships with computer companies who will use Alpha chips in their systems. With Alpha, Digital will become a "merchant" company, selling chips in volume to the outside world. Digital is already working with Cray Research who will use Alpha chips in its new MPP supercomputer and Kubota Corporation, who will use Alpha chips in building new, high-performance graphics workstations. Digital anticipates that others will soon take advantage of the Alpha technology. Digital is also marketing the Alpha chip for use in embedded, technical original equipment manufacturer (OEM) applications. To make a full range of applications, tailored to Alpha's strengths, available to customers, Digital is also working closely with software application developers on a support program to help software companies move their applications to Alpha. A MIGRATION STRATEGY FOR INVESTMENT PROTECTION Ensuring that Alpha products integrate seamlessly with other Digital platforms has been an Alpha design goal since its inception. Digital's migration strategy for Alpha will give customers, who own or buy a system from Digital today, a clear and simple path to add Alpha systems, as they become available over time, to their existing computing environments. Customer investments in applications and data, training, and peripherals will be preserved. No other vendor has provided this level of investment protection with its RISC offerings. Built in data compatibility will allow customers to move information back and forth between VAX VMS and Alpha VMS systems. In addition, VAX VMS systems and Alpha systems will be able to share disks in a VAXcluster. Customers will be able to move information back and forth between DECsystems/DECstations running OSF/1 and Alpha systems running OSF/1 through similar data compatibility. Source code compatibility will enable customers to run most VAX VMS programs on Alpha VMS systems following a simple re-compile and re-link. This capability will empower Digital customers to redeploy existing applications on Alpha systems to accelerate performance. In addition, customers can use the VAX systems they buy today to develop applications to run on both VAX and Alpha systems of tomorrow. Similar source code compatibility will allow customers to run their DECsystems/DECstations OSF/1 applications on Alpha systems running OSF/1 following a re-compile and re-link. Through sophisticated Digital binary translators, customers will also be able to run most DECsystem/DECstation OSF/1 and VAX VMS program images on Alpha systems. These software tools will translate OSF/1 executable images for DECsystems/DECstations and VMS executable images for VAX to the corresponding executable images on Alpha. Using these features, customers can run applications on Alpha that they can't or don't want to re-compile and achieve performance comparable to the then-current OSF/1 or VMS systems. In addition, Digital customers will benefit from common user interfaces and support for common peripherals. For example, all Alpha systems will provide DECwindows and Motif, eliminating the need for retraining of users who are already familiar with these environments. To protect customers' investments in peripherals, Alpha will support the Turbochannel, XMI, CI, SCSI, DSSI, and Future+ buses. Customers will be able to move many VAX or DECsystem/DECstation peripherals to Alpha systems at a time that makes the most business sense for them. Because peripherals often represent 50% or more of system cost, customers will derive a significant financial benefit through this compatibility. SERVICE AND SUPPORT Even the best technology is useful only if it can be maintained and used effectively. Training, consulting support, and maintenance services are vital to maximizing investment in today's advanced technologies. Digital's Alpha Services deliver support designed specifically to meet the needs of Alpha customers. Through its Alpha Vendor/Channels Services, Digital will provide comprehensive support for vendors who buy and incorporate Alpha products in their own product offerings. Digital professionals will be available to assist vendors in designing, prototyping, testing, manufacturing, distributing, and servicing Alpha products. Vendors can take advantage of tailored support packages, consulting, and training programs. For example, Digital can help vendors plan successful service programs and even provide services, on Digital and non-Digital products, on behalf of vendors. Currently Digital supports more than 200 software products from 50 vendors and over 10,000 products from 1,000 hardware vendors. Alpha End-User Services will help end users in planning, designing, implementing, and managing an Alpha environment. Service offerings will include consulting, education and training, client/server management services, integration and migration services, and others. IN SUMMARY Alpha clearly positions Digital for the future. It is a technology foundation supporting open computing, from the desktop to the data center, in the 1990s and beyond. With Alpha, Digital will provide customers with technology, systems, and services to achieve current and long-term business objectives and gain maximum competitive advantages. 68000 is a trademark of Motorola, Inc.