68060

The Motorola 68060 is a microprocessor that was part of the 68k family, released in 1994. It was designed as a high-performance successor to the 68040 and aimed to compete with contemporary RISC processors. Key features of the 68060 include a significantly improved integer unit, a faster floating-point unit, and larger on-chip caches. It incorporated a dual-issue superscalar pipeline, allowing it to execute more than one instruction per clock cycle in certain scenarios. The processor also featured a branch predictor to optimize instruction flow.

The 68060 was available in several clock speeds, typically ranging from 50 MHz to 75 MHz. It was manufactured using a 0.6 micrometer CMOS process. Unlike its predecessor, the 68060 included an integrated Memory Management Unit (MMU) and a Floating-Point Unit (FPU) on the same die, contributing to its enhanced performance. Its instruction set was largely compatible with earlier 68k processors, making it relatively easy to port software.

Despite its technical advancements, the 68060 faced strong competition from the rapidly evolving RISC architectures like ARM and MIPS, and later Intel's x86 processors. Its adoption was somewhat limited, primarily appearing in high-end personal computers and workstations of the mid-1990s, particularly those running AmigaOS and Mac OS. Production of the 68060 eventually ceased as the market shifted towards other architectures.