On Tue, 10 Dec 1996, Robert Black wrote:

> I thought that ART's position was that they weren't a large enough customer to
> persuade Digital to do a StongARM FPU. If Digital produce one ART will use it.
> Maybe someone who was at PB's talk at AW'96 would like to comment.

Indeed - the FPU ball is well and truly out of ART's court. PBs reasoning
why it probably wasn't going to happen went along the lines of...

FPU = 4 times increase in silicon area,
    = large increase in cost,
    = mostly targetted at desktop market(?)

DSP = much smaller increase in silicon usage,
    = much smaller increase in cost,
    = embedded, and desktop market.

Hence piccolo.

We must also ask if a StrongARM with FPU could fit into Digital's range of
processors, without poaching marketshare from other, more expensive
beasts...

Dan.