K6-2 - AMD

AMD K6-2

Marketing Logo
Developer	AMD
Manufacturer	AMD
Type	Microprocessors
Introduction	May 28, 1998 (announced) June, 1998 (launch)
Production	1998
Architecture	Pentium II-compatible superscalar microprocessors with MMX and 3DNow!
ISA	IA-32
µarch	K6-2
Word size	32 bit 4 octets 8 nibbles
Process	250 nm 0.25 μm 2.5e-4 mm
Technology	CMOS
Clock	233 MHz-550 MHz
Package	CPGA-321
Socket	Socket 7, Super Socket 7
Succession
←	→
K6	K6-III

K6-2 was a family of 32-bit x86 microprocessors introduced by AMD in early 1998 as a successor to the K6 family. These processors introduced a number of enhancements including support for Super Socket 7 with bus speeds of up to 100 MHz and 3DNow! SIMD extension.

Overview

Following AMD's acquisition of NexGen in 1995 and the success from the release of K6 (a rebranding of NegGen's Nx686), AMD had the financial means of developing the microarchitecture further. With the K6-2 family, AMD took the safe approach and improved on K6 by adding a number new features as well as improving its overall performance.

AMD increased and improved much of the K6 microarchitecure by adding a number of additional units boosting the overall performance. The K6-2 was AMD's first series of processors to offer 3DNow!, an x86 extension that offered floating point SIMD instructions. The addition of 3DNow! gave floating point calculations a serious performance boost and a much necessery boost since Intel usually dominated the area of fast x87 applications. Despite being the first to introduce a series of SIMD instructions, 3DNow! never gained as much popularity as SEE did, a later implementation by Intel.

Super 7

Main article: Super 7

AMD previously used Socket 7 for their K6 chips which was the last socket specification AMD retained rights to. Intel ditched that socket in favor of Slot 1 partially in an attempt to lock AMD out of a number of improved features, leaving them with an outdated platform.

For the K6-2 AMD introduced an enhanced version of Socket 7 called Super 7 Socket. Super 7 maintained backwards compatibilitiy with the older Socket 7 but added support for a system bus of up to 100 MHz. Additionally support for AGP was also introduced.

The risky move by AMD and a number of chipset manufacturers paid off and by 1998 Super 7 proved to be a highly profitable business move.