Technical Description of the DEC 7000 and DEC 10000 AXP Family

1 Abstract The DEC 7000 and DEC 10000 products are mid-range and mainframe Alpha AXP system offerings from Digital Equipment Corporation. These machines were designed to meet the needs of large commercial and scientific applications and therefore are high-performance, expandable systems that can be easily upgraded. The DEC 7000 and 10000 systems utilize the DECchip 21064 microprocessor operating at speeds up to 200 MHz. The high-speed chips, large caches, multiprocessor system architecture, high-performance backplane interconnect, and large memory capacity combine to create mainframe-class performance with a cost and size previously attributed to mid-range systems. The design of the DEC 7000 and 10000 systems provides a high-end platform and system environment for multiple generations of Alpha AXP chips. This platform, combined with a multiprocessor architecture, yields a multidimensional upgrade capability that will allow the system to meet users' needs for several years. System upgrade can take place by adding processors, replacing existing processors with next-generation processors, or both. This upgrade capability ensures stability to the system in terms of the physical and fiscal aspects of the end user's computing environment. The DEC 7000 and DEC 10000 systems are the logical follow-on products of the highly successful VAX 6000 family.[1] The new systems are capable of supporting either VAX processors or Alpha AXP processors. The capability to upgrade from a VAX processor to an Alpha AXP processor without changes to the system is essential for minimal disruption of large commercial applications. Most features of the VAX 6000 systems have been carried forward to the DEC 7000 and DEC 10000 products, and any deficiencies have been corrected. The DEC 7000 and DEC 10000 products are derived from the same system design. The DEC 10000 is a more fully configured system and includes an n+1 uninterruptible power system, additional I/O subsystems, and I/O expansion cabinets. The DEC 7000 uses a 182-megahertz (MHz) DECchip 21064 whereas the DEC 10000 uses a 200-MHz DECchip 21064. A very important goal for the project that encompassed the development of the DEC 7000 and 10000 systems was to provide a similar pair of systems based on a VAX microprocessor. A VAX microprocessor, called NVAX+, was designed to be pin compatible with the DECchip 21064 (the Alpha AXP microprocessor).[2,3] The system was designed to be somewhat microprocessor independent, and both VAX and Alpha AXP versions of the systems were