New PowerPC 64-bit Chip from IBM
Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2003 7:30 am
Here's something interesting--IBM's press release about the new PowerPC 970 chip, which will be used in IBM's servers and new Macs (probably). Here are the specs (please excuse the Germanic spellings, the release is from the IBM prototype lab in Germany):
What do you guys think? I personally think it is kind of cool that 64-bit processors will soon be coming to the desktop. Really, imagine that: a 64-bit processor running at 2-GHz!The new IBM PowerPC 970 is the heart of the PowerPC Blade. It is based on the 64-Bit Power 4 architecture which is also used in the processors of the IBM eServer pSeries. The 64-bit microprozessor:Therefore the IBMPowerPC 970 is the fastest PowerPC so far.
- Offers full symmetrical multi-processing
- Has a high reliability (with parity L1, ECC L2 and parity checked system bus)
- Is manufactured in the latest 0,13 micrometer Copper/SOI CMOS technology
- Runs at frequences ranging from 1.8 GHz - 2.5 Ghz
Further technical highlights of the PowerPC 970:
- Onchip 512 KB L2 Cache
- Altivec ? Vector/SIMD unit
- 6,4 GB/s I/O system bus throughput