Am-176 Board; Processor; Memory; Cache Memory - Alpha Microsystems AM-6000 Owner's Manual

Introducing the AM-6000 Computer
• Battery backed CMOS containing several boot routines that enable you to change the I/O device
the computer boots from

AM-176 Board

The AM-176 board provides the AM-6000 with:
• 4GB of direct memory addressability
• 64KB external cache memory SIMM
• 8KB on-chip processor instruction cache memory and 8KB of data cache
• On-board serial interface
• On-board Ethernet controller with 32-bit DMA transfer capability and AUI (DB-15) connector
• Four on-board single inline memory module (SIMM) expansion slots, which support 60ns
DRAMs for up to 512MB of memory
• SCSI controller with standard and Wide SCSI interfaces

Processor

The heart of your computer is its powerful CPU (Central Processing Unit), a high speed 32-bit
microprocessor. AM-6000 computers have an MC68060 processor running at 66MHz.

Memory

The AM-176 board in the AM-6000 has four sockets in which main memory SIMMs (Single Inline
Memory Modules) are installed. You must always install SIMMs in pairs of equal capacity. The AM-
6000 supports a minimum of 8MB and a maximum of 512MB (AM-176 boards earlier than Rev. B06 or
C04 support only 256MB). Always use PFB-00712-xx 60ns SIMMs.
See the specification sheet included with your computer for more detailed information on memory
capacity, and the AM-6000 Computer Service Manual for instructions on installing it.

Cache Memory

To streamline the use of repetitive instructions within a program and to decrease retrieval time, the AM-
176 board contains an external combined instruction cache. This cache improves the overall system
performance by reducing the number of clock cycles required by the processor to fetch information from
memory. In addition, the CPU has an 8KB instruction cache and an 8KB data cache.

CMOS Menu Setup

The CMOS setup procedure gives you many boot options never before available. Among the CMOS
menu options are:
AM-6000 Computer Owner's Manual, Rev. 02
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