Cyrix 1995 Annual Report
Winning Innovations

In 1995, Cyrix Corporation offered the personal computer industry three winning innovations. In June, the Cyrix 5x86 processor sped into the market, with high performance and extremely low power usage. Just four months later, in October, the Cyrix 6x86 processor ushered in a new generation of processor technology. Its superscalar, superpipelined, sixth-generation architecture delivered levels of PC performance never before achieved on desktop personal computers. By bringing these two innovative processors to market in 1995, Cyrix offered the industry a third remarkable innovation: Competition.

As a result, Cyrix is now a viable supplier of high-end x86 compatible processors. With products that exceed the performance levels of Intel's best, Cyrix is the first company that can legitimately challenge the market leader on the basis of performance.

Who wins with this unprecedented competition? The entire personal computer industry and the millions of end users whose current and future software will run faster than ever before. Processors, the circuits that drive and control a computer's information flow, are the most important components in determining PC performance. With another source for these vital components, PC manufacturers gain a compelling way to differentiate their high-performance products.

They also become less dependent on the pricing and product line of a single, dominant supplier and stand to benefit from the competition. Any dominance of the x86 processor industry inhibits freedom of choice and free enterprise. Cyrix aims to change this state of affairs -- for our customers who make computers and their customers who use them. With genuine competition among processor suppliers, the result for end users will be higher performance computers available at competitive prices.

Since Cyrix was founded in 1988, our engineers have thrived on the challenge of beating the best designs available in the market. The original architecture of the 6x86 is testament to the motivating power of competition. Now that Cyrix is setting performance standards rather than responding to them, the company looks forward to continuing to advance the standards.

What winning innovations does Cyrix have in store for 1996? We will continue to improve our products, reducing the cost of manufacturing and increasing processor speeds. We will continue our alliances with IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson, the companies that currently manufacture our products. Finally, we will do what we have always done best: develop ways to make personal computers run applications more quickly and efficiently.

Success by Design

There are approximately six million personal computers running with Cyrix brand processors. Such success happens by design. In 1995, Business Week magazine recognized Cyrix as one of the top ten American companies for research and development dollars spent per employee. In fact, in 1995 Cyrix spent 13 percent of revenues on research and development, an average of $75,000 per employee. This commitment has paid off for Cyrix: the 5x86™ and 6x86 products represent major achievements in processor technology. The groundbreaking 6x86 is the product of years of hard work and rigorous testing. Its superior architecture was built on the base of seven other wholly original, fully x86 compatible processor designs that Cyrix has brought to market since 1992. In fact, the pace at which Cyrix engineers have introduced these designs has shattered the industry's traditional design cycle time -- no other company has introduced two generations of original x86 architecture in a 12-month period. And with four design teams at work on speed enhancements of the 6x86 core-design, multimedia hardware emulation, as well as next-generation products, we hope to continue this strong track record.

Cyrix 5x86

The Cyrix 5x86 debuted in June 1995 at the Computex Trade Show in Taiwan and at PC Expo in New York. It offered PC manufacturers a fifth-generation processor that could leverage the existing 486 infrastructure and thereby be brought to market quickly. It also offered end users Pentium-class performance and world-class energy efficiency. Initially introduced at 100 MHz, the 5x86 compared favorably with entry level Pentium processors. In October, a 120 MHz version was introduced, offering even higher levels of performance.

Though the 5x86 preceded the 6x86 processor to market by four months, its fifth-generation architecture drew from the innovations being built into the succeeding sixth-generation CPU. Performance-enhancing features that ensure an efficient instruction flow on the 6x86, such as branch prediction and data forwarding, accelerated the 5x86 as well. These features enabled a Ziff-Davis Winstone® 95 performance benchmark of 127 for the 100 MHz 5x86 processor, versus the 117 scored by the 75 MHz Pentium processor on an equivalent system.

Market readiness and high performance weren't the only powerful attractions of the Cyrix 5x86 processor. Stringent power management -- the kind of power management that can double battery life -- was another defining characteristic. With the 5x86 processor, Cyrix offered a CPU that delivered fifth-generation performance at less than half the power consumption of competing alternatives while fitting into existing system designs -- a winning combination for PC manufacturers, particularly makers of notebooks and other portable systems.

Cyrix 6x86

On October 6, 1995, a new era in processor technology began -- the sixth generation. The Cyrix 6x86 powered personal computers to unprecedented levels of performance, achieving faster benchmark scores on many tests than any previous x86 processor. Something else unprecedented happened on October 6 -- a company other than Intel led the way in new processor technology.

The industry was quick to recognize the significance of this achievement. According to industry luminary Bill Machrone in PC Magazine in December 1995, "The 6x86 represents the first real alternative that system builders -- and users -- have had to the Pentium." According to the October 9, 1995 issue of Electronic Buyers' News, "Cyrix stepped out of Intel's shadow and into the desktop computing spotlight when it announced initial shipments of the 6x86, the fastest x86 microprocessor introduced to date."

Ziff-Davis Winstone 96 benchmark testing -- the industry-recognized performance barometer -- showed the Cyrix 6x86 processor family consistently outperforming its competition. For example, on tests conducted by third parties utilizing similar systems, the 6x86-P166+ scored an 86.7 Winstone 96 performance rating, compared to the 82.7 scored by the 166 MHz Pentium processor. On the same benchmarks, our 6x86-P150+ processor outperformed our competitor's 150 MHz CPU by a score of 81.9 to 77.6.

How did the Cyrix 6x86 processor achieve this performance advantage? Through superior architecture. The 6x86 and its Pentium-class competitors are both superscalar, with two separate pipelines executing instructions simultaneously. But the 6x86 is also superpipelined -- its pipelines are divided into several processing stages able to handle more information faster -- whereas Pentium CPUs are not. The features of the Cyrix 6x86 include data forwarding capabilities, out-of-order processing, multi-branch prediction, speculative execution and dynamic register renaming -- all of which accelerate the flow of instructions to levels never before achieved. The architectural sophistication that Cyrix engineers bring to Cyrix processors means that raw clock speeds are no longer absolute measures of processor performance.

For end users, the true measure will be how the 6x86 processor lets them do more things -- running real-time video, creating multimedia presentations, manipulating graphics, navigating databases, executing spreadsheets, multitasking, accessing the Internet -- faster than ever before. Unlike our competitor's newest CPU, the Pentium Pro, the Cyrix 6x86 was designed for optimal performance on PC operating systems and applications widely used today. When it comes to tomorrow's 32-bit applications, supporting such operating systems as Windows NT, the 6x86 will compete strongly with the Pentium Pro as well.

For PC makers the message is clear -- those who want to bring to market systems that run existing and future applications at peak levels can now, for the first time, look beyond the industry's dominant processor supplier. In a homogenous hardware environment, the Cyrix 6x86 offers PC makers an immediate, high-level means of product differentiation -- the 6x86 plugs easily into the Pentium infrastructure. But with the 6x86 family, Cyrix processors are more than just acceptable performance alternatives for Pentium-class systems. When it comes to running today's most popular applications, Cyrix 6x86 processors are setting performance standards.

Building Winning Relationships

Cyrix focuses its resources on designing innovative products such as the 6x86 processor. To manufacture these products, Cyrix has developed relationships with two leading semiconductor manufacturers -- IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson. Multi-year agreements with both companies give Cyrix access to the leading-edge process technology required to produce high-performance CPUs and the benefit of the billions of dollars these manufacturers have invested in their technology and facilities. IBM has begun volume production of the 6x86; SGS-Thomson is expected to begin production of the 6x86 in their new facility in Phoenix, Arizona, in the third quarter of 1996.

A concrete sign of our commitment to the quality of our manufacturing is the new 82,000-square-foot testing facility Cyrix is building at its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The new facility is due for completion in July 1996.

Everybody Wins

For Cyrix there are many ways to win in the processor business. Over the years, we have won the Byte Magazine Award of Merit, the WIN 100 Award from Windows Magazine, and the Stellar Award from Windows Sources Magazine. We have won the business of PC manufacturers who believe in our engineering and vision. We won the race to bring the first sixth-generation processor to market. In fact, by introducing two original processor architectures in 1995, we are poised for a winning 1996 -- for Cyrix as a company and the personal computer industry as a whole.

There is no doubt that our processors won industry attention in 1995. In its year-end review, Microprocessor Report observed that the "6x86 became the first shipping Pentium-pin compatible processor, ... putting Cyrix in a leadership position among Intel's competitors ... As the first direct Pentium competitor, this chip has dramatically boosted Cyrix's prospects and proved the company's design skills." According to Electronic Buyers' News, in October 1995, "The announcement by Cyrix last week that it is now shipping its 6x86 ... is one of the most significant milestones in the history of the microprocessor business."

Though 1995 was a transition year in terms of sales, we look to 1996 with confidence. The fact is, the industry needs a viable alternative to Intel and we are in the best position to provide that alternative.

Without compromising performance, PC makers now have choice. As Computer Reseller News noted in October 1995, "There's no doubt that Cyrix has products that are performance-competitive with Intel's best." In the same month, PC Week reported, "Intel's Pentium is no longer king of the hill. Based on testing by PC Week Labs, Cyrix's new 100 MHz 6x86 gives the 133 MHz Pentium a run for its money." "If benchmarks are any indication," wrote InfoWorld, again in October 1995, "... the 6x86 could be a real Pentium killer."

With the Cyrix 6x86, our customers can deliver the highest levels of performance to their customers -- the end users. Whether they're using Windows 95, any other PC operating system, the most highly evolved multimedia programs or the most powerful business and communications software -- they will all reach levels of performance previously unattainable. And with a competitive processor industry, they will be able to reach these levels at competitive prices.