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P6 µarch
General Info
Arch Type	CPU
Designer	Intel
Manufacturer	Intel
Introduction	October, 1995
Phase-out	December, 2000
Process	350 nm, 250 nm
Instructions
ISA	x86-32
Succession
P5 NetBurst Pentium M

Pentium Pro processor with 1M of L2 cache.

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 made obsolete by NetBurst in late 2000.

Codenames

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Process Technology

P6 was manufactured on the 0.35 µm process initially and later enjoyed a process shrink down to 0.25 µm, allowing for considerably lower voltage and higher clock speed at a smaller silicon die area. The shrink introduced a 5th metal layer which further reduced RC delay and die area. Intel claimed the 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

Compiler support

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Architecture

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Die Shot

Tualatin

Klamath

• 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)

Pentium Pro

• 0.35 µm process
• 5,500,000 transistors

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.

Documents

• Intel Architecture Optimization Manual, Document 242816-003; 1997