3 ms·
Hitachi's SH series were supposedly named that because they were "super hot". Their marketing department didn't manage to propagate that interpretation but I l
by gumby 3y ago
Hitachi's SH series were supposedly named that because they were "super hot". Their marketing department didn't manage to propagate that interpretation but I liked the architecture.
> The SH-4 is probably most famous for being the processor behind the Sega Dreamcast.
It was always amusing to visit Sega HQ back in those days and see how all-in they were on Hitachi: from the Hitachi elevator in the building to the conference rooms with Hitachi OHP, Hitachi wall clock, Hitachi conference table, Hitachi pens, hitachi computers and of course Hitachi chips... Those huge conglomerates (Keiretsu) are crazy!
- meepmorp 3y ago> Hitachi's SH series were supposedly named that because they were "super hot". Super hot like they're great chips, or super hot like they're space heaters that incidentally do math?
- TapamN 3y agoIt's not because of their temperature. One version of the SH3 (single issue, at 80 MHz) is speced at 260 mW. The SH4 used in the Dreamcast (dual issue at 200 MHz), seems to be 4W. Hitachi apparently had a trademark on "Cool Engine" for the SuperH (https://www.cpushack.com/CIC/embed/announce/HitachiSH7709.html https://www.cpushack.com/CIC/embed/announce/HitachiSH7709.ht...).
- johnklos 3y agoThey definitely don't run hot. In addition to Dreamcasts, they were used in many appliance type devices like NAS, and I've never seen or heard of any that require cooling.
- gumby 3y agoAs in the "hot chips" conference -- supposed to mean "amazing and a big hit". I mean, would the marketing department promote something negative?
- Sophistifunk 3y agoSuper Hot like they were named in Japan in the early 90s
- numpad0 3y agoUndoubtedly retronymized from Super Hitachi as in the successor to Hitachi H8... So if it weren't supposed to stand for hot, it'll still have had to be something with H.
- brcmthrowaway 3y agoWhat ever happened to them.. why don't Fujitsu and Hitachi design chips ?
- kalleboo 3y agoThe Japanese chip manufacturers weren't all competitive on their own so they rolled everything together into Renesas to gain better scale
- Matthias247 3y agoAnd Renesas continues to produce the existing chips/architectures (like SuperH), but also adopted ARM due to customer demand.
- pezezin 3y agoFujitsu still does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujitsu_A64FX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujitsu_A64FX