The latest advance in the Pentium processor line is the Pentium III^TM.

Architectural features of the Pentium III processor include:

• Streaming SIMD Extensions:
  The Streaming SIMD Extensions consist of 70 new instructions, including single instruction multiple data floating point, additional SIMD integer, and cacheability control instructions. Some of the technologies that benefit from the Streaming SIMD Extensions include advanced imaging, 3D, streaming audio and video, and speech recognition applications. This results in:
  • Higher resolution and higher quality image viewing and manipulation.
  • High quality audio and MPEG2 video.
  • Simultaneous MPEG2 encoding and decoding.
  • Reduced CPU utilisation for speech recognition, as well as higher accuracy and faster response times.
• Intel Processor Serial Number:
  The processor serial number, the first of Intel's planned building blocks for PC security, serves as an electronic serial number for the processor and, by extension, its system or user, enabling the system / user to be identified by networks and applications. The processor serial number will be used in applications that benefit from stronger forms of system and user identification. It can be enabled / disabled under software control.
• Intel MMX Media Enhancement Technology:
  Intel MMX technology is designed as a set of 57 basic, general-purpose integer instructions and four data types that are easily applied to the needs of a wide diversity of multimedia and communications applications. Highlights of the technology include:
  • Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) technique.
  • Eight 64-bit wide MMX technology registers.
• Dynamic Execution Technology:
  • Multiple branch prediction - Predicts program execution through several branches, thereby accelerating the flow of work to the processor.
  • Dataflow analysis - Creates an optimised, reordered schedule of instructions by analysing data dependencies between instructions.
  • Speculative execution - Carries out instructions speculatively, and based on this optimised schedule, ensures that the processor's superscalar execution units remain busy, thereby boosting overall performance.
• Testing and Performance Monitoring Features:
  • Built-in Self Test (BIST) provides single stuck-at fault coverage of the microcode and large logic arrays, as well as testing of the instruction cache, data cache, Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs), and ROMs.
  • IEEE^® 1149.1 Standard Test Access Port and Boundary Scan mechanism enables testing of the Pentium III processor and system connections through a standard interface.
  • Internal performance counters for performance monitoring and event counting.
  • Incorporates an on-die diode that can be used to monitor the die temperature. A thermal measurement circuit located on the motherboard can monitor the die temperature of the Pentium III processor for thermal management purposes.
• Other significant features of the Pentium III processor include:
  • S.E.C.C.2. packaging, developed by Intel, enables high-volume availability, improved handling protection, and a common form factor for compatibility with future high-performance processors.
  • High-performance Dual Independent Bus (DIB) architecture (system bus and cache bus) provides high bandwidth, performance, and scalability with future system technologies. The system bus supports multiple outstanding transactions to increase bandwidth availability. It also provides "glueless" support for up to two processors. This enables low-cost, two-way symmetric multiprocessing, providing a significant performance boost for multitasking operating systems and multithreaded applications.
  • A 512k unified, non-blocking, level-two (L2) cache improves performance by reducing the average memory access time and by providing fast access to recently used instructions and data. Performance is enhanced through a dedicated 64-bit cache bus. The speed of the L2 cache scales with the processor core frequency. This processor also incorporates two separate 16k level-one caches, one for instructions and one for data.
  • Both the 500 and 450 MHz Pentium III processors support memory cacheability for up to 4 GB of addressable memory space.
  • The processor is available with Error Correction Code (ECC) functionality on the level-two cache bus for applications where data intensity and reliability are essential.
  • A pipelined Floating-Point Unit (FPU) supports the 32-bit and 64-bit formats specified in IEEE^® standard 754 as well as an 80-bit format.
  • Parity-protected address / request and response system bus signals with a retry mechanism ensure high data integrity and reliability.

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Pentium III XEON^TM.

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