NVAX

The NVAX is a microprocessor developed and fabricated by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) that implemented the VAX instruction set architecture (ISA). The NVAX was a high-end single-chip VAX microprocessor. A variant of the NVAX, the NVAX+, differed in the bus interface and external cache supported, but was otherwise identical in regards to microarchitecture. The NVAX is clocked at frequencies of 83.3 MHz (12 ns), 71 MHz (14 ns) and 62.5 MHz (16 ns), while the NVAX+ is clocked at a frequency of 90.9 MHz (11 ns).

The NVAX and NVAX+ was used in late-model VAX systems released in 1991 such as the MicroVAX 3100, VAXstation 4000, VAX 4000, VAX 6000, VAX 7000/10000 and VAXft. Although Digital updated the design throughout the early 1990s, the processors and the VAX platform itself was ultimately superseded by the introduction of the DECchip 21064, an implementation of the Alpha (then Alpha AXP) architecture, and the resulting systems in November 1992.

NVAX contained 1.3 million transistors on a die measuring 16.2 by 14.6 mm in size (236.52 mm²). The die was fabricated in Digital's fourth-generation CMOS process, CMOS-4, a 0.75 µm process with three layers of aluminium interconnect. The NVAX is packaged in a 339-pin pin grid array while the NVAX+ is packaged in a 431-pin pin grid array that is compatible with the Alpha AXP-based DECchip 21064 microprocessor.