Edit Values
P6 µarch
General Info
Arch Type	CPU
Designer	Intel
Manufacturer	Intel
Introduction	October, 1995
Phase-out	December, 2000
Process	350 nm, 250 nm
Succession
P5 NetBurst Pentium M

P6 was the microarchitecture for Intel's for desktops and servers as a successor to P5. Introduced in 1995 and continued until 2000, P6 was fabricated using 350 nm and 250 nm processes. P6 was obsoleted by NetBurst in late 2000.

Process Technology

P6 was manufactured on 0.35 µm process initially and alter enjoyed a process shrink down to 0.25 µm allowing for considerably lower voltage and higher clock speed at a smaller silicon die area. With the shrink introduced a 5th metal layer which further reduced RC delay and die area. Intel claimed channel area was reduced by 50% with the introduction of the 5th layer. The 5th layer also enabled Intel to support C4 packaging.

	0.35 µm	0.25 µm	Δ
Contacted Gate Pitch​	550 nm	500 nm	0.91x
Interconnect Pitch	880 nm	640 nm	0.73x

Die Shot

• 280 nm process CMOS
• 4 metal layers
• 7,500,000 transistors
• 13.3 mm x 14.6 mm
• 194.8 mm² die size
• 540-pin BGA (Ball Grid Array)

References

• Schutz, J., and R. Wallace. "A 450 MHz IA32 P6 family microprocessor." Solid-State Circuits Conference, 1998. Digest of Technical Papers. 1998 IEEE International. IEEE, 1998.
• Brand, Adam, et al. "Intel’s 0.25 micron, 2.0 volts logic process technology." Intel Technology Journal Q 3 (1998): 1998.
• Integrated Circuit Engineering (ICE) Corporation. "Construction Analysis Intel 266MHz 32-Bit Pentium II (Klamath) Processor"; Shared Construction Analysis (SCA) 9706-542.