XLR8 announced that it has posted a white paper which releases into the public domain information allowing a manufacturer to enhance current Power PC 7400 ZIF processor card designs. This specification optimizes cache coherency and enables the processor for use in multiprocessing architectures such as the XLR8 MACh Velocity MPe and the MACh Carrier G4 MPe.
"With the tremendous performance benefits that come from using dual processors in OS X and 9.1 today, multiprocessing will become the way to give current machines much greater performance. With the SMP architecture of OS X and a second MPe enabled ZIF processor, the result is up to twice the performance. "Itis never been easier to upgrade! Users should insist on Power Macintosh G4 upgrades also being MPe ZIFs," explained Jack Kolk, VP and General Manager of XLR8. "It gives the highest level of performance for a single processor upgrade and allows the use of this processor in a multiprocessor environment with even greater performance. Even if the user never upgrades to multiprocessing the XLR8 MACh Speed G4 MPe still has greater resale value when the machine or processor is sold. With the next generation of Power PC upgrades utilizing the Power PC 7450 processors soon to come to market, why would you want anything but an MPe design?"
XLR8 designed the MPe ZIF to overcome the limitation created by the lack of multiprocessing support the current ZIF processor design used in many of the more popular recent Macintosh machines. The specification allows for Power PC G4 processors to communicate in a much more efficient manner in order to optimize multiprocessing support. The communication methodology is the standard supported by the 7400 Power PC or G4 processor family but it requires circuitry support that, up until XLR8is MPe design, had not been implemented.
You can find more information on the MACh MPe cards at the XLR8 Web site.