IBM will unveil a new processor on Tuesday that will be twice as fast as those of competitors such as Sun, Intel and AMD when it appears in 2007, according to the group.Posted on 02/06/2006 8:51:04 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
IBM will unveil a new processor on Tuesday that will be twice as fast as those of competitors such as Sun, Intel and AMD when it appears in 2007, according to the group.
IBM’s Power6 chip is a radical departure from the trend among microprocessor makers to produce more energy-efficient chips after their race to increase speeds created overheating problems.
IBM said it had broken through energy and heat barriers with the Power6 to achieve speeds of between 4 and 5 gigahertz – more than double the performance of the next generation of Intel’s Itanium chip, planned at less than 2GHz.
The processor will give IBM an edge in the high-end server market, operating faster in the same “power envelope” as its rivals.
Bernie Myerson, chief technology officer of IBM’s Systems and Technology group, said existing chip technology reached its physical limits four years ago in terms of doubling the number of transistors on a chip while reducing the amount of power needed to run them.
But techniques such as stretching and squeezing the silicon used, improving synchronisation at high speeds and taking a holistic approach to improving the chip architecture had enabled a breakthrough.
“There’s nobody looking at anything like this. We have a more highly integrated chip that is multi-core and we are increasing the frequency – we are turning up both knobs at once when the industry is going the other way and turning [the frequency] knob down,” Mr Myerson said.
Richard Doherty, analyst with Envisioneering, a consultancy, said IBM achieved frequencies of 6GHz in their labs.
“It’s our belief that this is going to be the fastest computing chip and family in the world for some time.
“A lot of people will be surprised by this. It will cause a lot of companies to go back to the drawing board,” he said.
IBM will make its disclosures about the Power6 at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.
It unveiled its revolutionary Cell processor at the same conference a year ago, which will feature in Sony’s PlayStation3 games console.
fyi
I think AMD is cooping with IBM on this technology....saw that somewhere.
IBM has announced plans to produce 1 or 2 this year.
So I'm guessing this is different architecture than the Cell processor? I thought that was supposed to be The Big Thing.
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—Achievements Can Help Both Companies Meet Aggressive Goals for Increasing Performance, While Decreasing Power Requirements, of Future Microprocessors—
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- December 6, 2005 --In papers presented at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in Washington, D.C., IBM (NYSE: IBM) and AMD (NYSE: AMD) today detailed their progress in bringing new, advanced semiconductor process technologies and materials to the 65 nanometer (nm) technology generation.
The companies announced that they have successfully combined embedded Silicon Germanium (e-SiGe) with Dual Stress Liner (DSL) and Stress Memorization technology (SMT) on Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) wafers, resulting in a 40 percent increase in transistor performance compared to similar chips produced without stress technology, while controlling power consumption and heat dissipation. The new process technologies reduce interconnect delay through the use of lower dielectric constant (lower-K) insulators, which can improve overall product performance and lower power consumption. In addition, the new technologies have shown ability to be manufactured at the 65nm generation and scaleable for use in future generations.
“Our joint work on developing advanced process technologies continues to ensure we can create and provide the highest performance, lowest power processors on the market,” said Nick Kepler, vice president of logic technology development at AMD. “Yet again, we can add another achievement to our list of successes that demonstrate how shared expertise and skills can result in overcoming roadblocks and creating more valuable innovations for customers.”
“At IBM, we strongly believe that our unique joint development partnership with AMD at East Fishkill, N.Y. is key to overcoming power and heat challenges as the industry reaches near atomic scales,” said Gary Patton, vice president, technology development at IBM's Semiconductor Research and Development Center. “The successful integration of leadership technologies from IBM, AMD and our partners at 65nm demonstrates the strength of our collaborative innovation model.”
Additional details about third generation strain technology innovations from AMD and IBM will be disclosed at the 2005 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, December 5-7, 2005 in Washington, D.C. This technology was developed as part of the AMD and IBM joint development alliance at AMD’s fabrication facilities in Dresden, Germany, and at the IBM Semiconductor Research and Development Center in East Fishkill, N.Y.
Cell is very different....
Too bad data storage is so slow...
This has to happen immediately after Apple announces it's dropping IBM to go to Intel chips. Go figure.
Get a microphone and talk to it!
Last rumor was that Cell tech would creep into the POWER line as of this generation.
IBM announced the tech for this a few years ago, and had chips running up to 100 GHz last year, so it's quite plausible, even conservative.
Ping
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Seems this announcement is more about the chip technology than it is about the actual microprocessor architecture.....
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