Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the insulation-is-good dept.
hypos writes: "According to this ZDNet article, IBM is going to add an insulating layer of oxide between the transistor and its silicon bed, which IBM claims can increase a processor's performance by 20 to 30%. Best of all, it's supposed to come to new Macs soon. "
10 hour battery life for PowerBooks?
by
LarryTheCucumber
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· Score: 2
From the ZDNet article:
SOI can be used in one of two ways. It can be used to create low-power chips. In this case, by keeping clock speed the same, SOI would reduce the power consumption of a chip by two to three times.
Apple already claims >5 hour battery life for Powerbooks. With a 2 to 3 times power consumption decrease for the processor, how much more battery life can they get?
-jimbo
-- "Hold me Bob!" "I would if I could man!" -Larry and Bob in VeggieTales
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
PenguinX
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· Score: 2
Agreed - I miss Umax also.
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
kootch
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· Score: 2
hey, don't forget that the g4's will also be going multi-processor soon...
so a 2 Ghz G4... yummy
Re:PowerPC users have always been SOL.
by
um...+Lucas
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· Score: 5
I don't mean this to sound like flamebait, but it always seems that the PowerPC is playing second or third fiddle.
I think this is flamebait...
It gets knocked aside by x86 users on the desktop due to lack of applications.
Same thing always happens to Linux around here, but everyone seems to defend that OS.
Yeah, sure, it's nifty to do graphics/desktop publishing, but if you're serious about that, you're running an Amiga or BeOS anyway.
The Mac decimates both the Amiga and BeOS in the graphics and desktop publishing arena's. The Amiga used to be (and still is somewhat) a wonderous machine to work with video with, but it's been floundering the past several years due to not really having an owner that's been willing to pour money into it. The BeOS, yes, has a more elegant architecture, but alas, it lacks color management, postscript font support, and applications from Quark, Adobe, and Macromedia. Until it gets more apps, the BeOS will remain an oddity to everyone except it's core users.
I recall reading once that a Mac makes a nice webserver because it's too dumb to really break into or do any damage.
Well, that's true, but if you're buying a mac specifically to serve web pages, in most cases I'd say that you just wasted a pile of money... Or else you're limiting your sites functionality serverly. The mac is missing a lot of support i the server arena. Doubtless, that will change when OS X arrives, but until then.
So why do people insist on using the Power PC?
Because 99% of the computers that use PowerPC's run the Mac OS. And some people prefer that OS to those available from Microsoft, IBM, Redhat, Be, or any other. They even like it enough to spend a few more dollars on the hardware i nwhich to run it.
Why do companies like IBM spend development dollars trying to push an outdated chip architecture, when they could be pushing next generation technologies.
With Apple shipping nearly a million iMacs and G3/G4's per quarter and with Power PC chips selling for (a complete stab in the dark) $250 a piece, that translates to a BILLION dollars a year of business for IBM and Motorolla. If you ran a company, would you turn down that much money?
The PowerPC chip isn't geared towards "PC's" as it's name implies... At least in my world, i equate PC with "x86 compatible". People shouldn't be buying Power PC based computers unless (for now) they want to run the Mac OS, or for the small percentage of folks (Linux PPC users) they value to superior hardware designs enough that a few more dollars doesn't hurt. Asd for your 3 year time limit, I don't quite get it. Are you suggesting that Mac users should abandon the platform they chose and switch to Windows or Linux after 3 years for no reason? I've been computing for 15 or so years and the Mac is still my favorite platform for getting work done on and I'm sure plenty of other/. readers will agree..
Re:License the technology ?
by
tak+amalak
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· Score: 3
Intel has no chips that use copper.
True.
Motorola/IBM own the copper technology, and Intel is severly lagging in developing it.
Not really. No one owns copper technology. IBM and Motorola both have patents on manufacturing processors with copper but any company that wants to can develop their own process of making chips with copper interconnects.
AMD Licenses it from IBM, rather that re-invent the wheel.
Actually, AMD licenses it from Motorola.
--
-- Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
Athlon (+ maybe Willamette) are *not* pure x86
by
TuRRIcaNEd
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· Score: 3
AMD's Athlon and Intel's Wilamette are excellent x86 designs, which are severely cutting-edge. I'm not sure about the Willamette architecture, as I haven't done much reading into it, but pretty much everything from the Pentium (P6 in particular) onwards has strayed from being pure x86 in favour of a heavily pipelined architecture. In the case of the Athlon, effectively the CISC x86 instructions are emulated by splitting them down into what AMD terms MacroOps, and letting the RISC core deal with the rest.
Where the PPC scores here is that it is fundametally RISC by nature, although IIRC the PPC has a basic 68k emulation frontend for legacy purposes. However most modern apps on the Mac are tailored for the PPC, and as such, can use some of the funky RISC features to gain a speed advantage. For example, some Photoshop filters will render quicker on a G4@400MHz than on an equivalent, or higher spec x86 box, simply because the architecture is less cluttered, and the compilers don't have to take the legacy baggage into consideration. The same applies to the Alpha, in that by using MHz as a speed comparison between architectures, you are doing the more modern chips a major disservice, because they don't need to be clocked as high to gain comparable application performance.
As for the colour and font handling, he's right. The Macintosh's ease of use made it a very strong contender in the DTP arena early on, and as a result, programs like ATM and ColorSync allow a far greater degree of output control than the Windows (or Linux, sorry guys) equivalent. This is just by the nature of having existed on the platform longer, however.
-- - "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
Re:2 years ahead? Prove it IBM!
by
Weasel+Boy
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· Score: 2
I can't figure out why a Copper PowerPC has not been released yet. It has always been in the wings for 2 years.
The copper PPC has been out for a long time. I believe G3s faster than 400 MHz and all G4s are on copper. Where's the copper X86?
Also, I remember way back when in the days of the optimism over the open PowerPC Platform, there was some information about a PowerPC 615 processor with built-in x86 emulation. I don't remember if the chip was designed by Motorola or IBM, but that should have been great technology released to the public.
IBM. Lots of potentially great technology gets scuttled for technical or business reasons. Since IBM never officially admitted the chip existed, we'll never know why it was pulled. Maybe Intel threatened IBM's supply of Pentiums and the emulation wasn't good enough for IBM to tell Intel to take a hike. Or maybe they didn't think it would sell well. Or it didn't work at all. Or maybe it was only a rumor.
It is really a shame that the PowerPC G4 is currently only at 500 MHz. RISC processors should easily have a MHz advantage because they are simpler in design. Man, imagine a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 available today. People would definitely notice.
IBM demonstrated a 1.1 GHz PowerPC a year ago at (IIRC) HotChips '99. Current rumor is that IBM is ready, able and willing to ship G4s at 780 MHz but has business reasons for not doing so.
Don't believe for a second that the super-duper high clock speeds you see in the PC world is more than an Intel/AMD pissing contest. Neither company is capable of shipping large quantities of their highest-rated chips. In the absence of the PIII/Athlon rivalry, PCs today would be topping out at about 700 MHz, and they'd be comparable to today's top PowerPCs.
So, IBM, prove your new advantage.
IBM clearly likes to hold its cards close to the vest. They don't hype, they just quietly deliver.
Does this mean I'm happy with the current state of affairs? Of course not! I want a quad-1GHz-G4 PowerBook NOW, dang it!:-)
As this is getting into a fest of Mac Bashing I though I'd try and do something on-topic. So here is a little explaination of how IBM's method works (note this is not a new method as the Silicon on Saphire method has been around for years.. however IBM seems to have altered the idea by replacing the expensive saphire with cheap silica) A normal NMOSFET transistor would to something like this (side view) Drain Source MMMMM Gate MMMMMM OOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOO OOOOMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMOOOOO SSSS######SSSSSSSSSS######SSSSS SSSS######SSSSSSSSSS######SSSSS SSSS######SSSSSSSSSS######SSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS (M Metal track) (# Doped silicon) (O Silica) (S Intrinsic silicon)
When the transistor is in operation it has a charged region (depletion zone) around it as such... Drain Source MMMMM Gate MMMMMM OOOOMMMMMMMMMMM MOOOOO OOOOMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMOOOOO SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS SS@SSSSSSSSSSS@@@@@@@@@@@@@@SSS SSS@@@@@@@@@@@SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
This charged region (boundary shown with @ signs) acts as capacitor which is bad (slows down the operation of the transistor). What the process does is to place a layer of oxide below the chip as shown MMMMM MMMMMM OOOOMMMMMMMMMMM MOOOOO OOOOMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMOOOOO SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO This stops some of the charged layer from forming as the charge cannot move (easily) in the oxide. Which speeds up the transistor. 'Tis a nice idea doing it with silica though which should make the chips very affordable (ie. only 2 or 3 extra process stages) (btw. this is my on words no trade secrets - not that/. would allow that;) ) -mG
-- Physicists are said to stand on one another's shoulders while programmers stand on one another's toes.
Actually, SOI is far from new as a concept either. What has happened is IBM has managed to make it mass producable. The big problem with SOI in industry in the past has been that of yield. Getting a consistant thickness in either the buried oxide or the SOI silicon layer is difficult, let alone getting both of them at the same time!
The wafers I am working with have a nice uniform SiO2 layer, but the SOI layer varies in thickness from 2-3 um across the 5" wafer! That variation would kill any big chip you tried to produce in mass quantities. Since IBM is using SIMOX wafers, this means that they have one heck of a good ion-implanter with amazing straggle control.
Judging from the cross-section SEM images at IBM's website, their SOI layer is of similar thickness, so there is still a bit of silicon between the source/drain regions and the oxide. This distance is what allows them to use the SIMOX wafers, handling the straggle from the ion implantation.
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
PenguinX
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· Score: 2
Because IBM has been able to do wonders to this chip that Motorola hasn't. Being that there is still oh what? how many months until the end of the year? The G4 in it's current state, *should* be capable of 800Mhz solid, easy, but motorola just has been unable to fab them at this speed.Tan extra tweak of development (such as this) and better fabbing techniques, and business trends are where I got my number.
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
PenguinX
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· Score: 2
I had a Starmax, it was crap. Actually *most* of the clones had watered down bus speeds, and were overall weird - even though Apple "approved" them apple was lax in what they said could happen, but then again Gil was driving the company and he's not exactally the brightest boy in the world.
On a different note, since the upturn of Apple Motorola has made a ton of money off just the sales of the chips, it would definately be in their best business plan to fab the chip correctly.
the more competition to intel, the better. look what happened with AMD...i know powerpc is not x86, but it does run linux. maybe intel will get some more needed kicks in the pants.
Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
PenguinX
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· Score: 3
Motorola has been trying to get a G4 over 600Mhz to no avail, while IBM has them well beyond that. This move will yet again prove that IBM is more interested in Apple then longtime Motorola. I would imagine that if Apple went solely w/ IBM that we would see a 1 - 1.2Ghz G4 by the end of the year.
Yum!
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
crazyj
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· Score: 2
Motorola had something like $100M worth of "StarMax PowerPC Computers" built and ready to go when Apple did that.
The funny thing is that all of the StarMaxes around Motorola are leased. Why would any company lease a product that they built themselves. That's like installing a soda machine in your house and thinking "Man, the more soda I drink, the more money I make."
I don't think Motorola is too happy about them using PowerPC.
They're not, that's most of the reason they are switching to NT machines and getting rid of all the Macs.
I don't think anyone would want to supply anything to Apple after getting backstabbed like that.
Well, just because you don't like what somebody does doesn't mean you stop making a bunch of money off of them.
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
hattig
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· Score: 3
Well, IBM reckon that they would have 700MHz G4's next week if Motorola would let them make the damn things, so add 30% onto that and you have 910MHz G4s. Couple that with Motorolas G4+ core, which will be released in around 4 months time at 800MHz to 1GHz and you could easily have 1GHz+ G4s by the end of the year...
The G3 and G4 are the consumer PowerPC chips. IBM are pushing it - they have the POP motherboards, which are slowly starting to appear now, and with a SOI G4+ processor and AGP4x, and ATA-100 (or Serial ATA) support you would have a really good motherboard that really kicked ass. Shame the motherboards that will appear will be half-functional, but hopefully some server-level motherboards will appear for multi-G4 setups. That would be sweet, much better than a dual PIII Xeon or whatever. A G4 is around as powerful as an equivalent speed Xeon (give or take a little), and they cost a lot less than a Xeon, so people shouldn't give the processor so much stick. A PIII 700MHz Xeon with 1Mb cache can set you back $1000.
Posted with Mozilla 2000052120. Damned great now, faster than ever, looking good (the buttons are in the correct place!).
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
Coventry
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· Score: 4
IBM's PowerPC processors for thier rs6000 and as/400s are COMPLETELY diffrent from the g4 design - they are compatable on a binary level, but then again, so are the 386 and the pentium II... IBM uses very specialized processors in thier high-end systems - three integer pipelines, 2 fpus, 1000+ pins on thier interface (HIGH bandwith bus!!), tons of cache... each integer pipeline is Long, like 12+ stages, allowing for high scalablity in the Mhz of the processor... The g4 has too few stages in its pipeline, leading to it being Very hard to scale to high Mhz... copper/soi g4s _might_ get to 600Mhz - but the yeilds would be just as low as the current 500Mhz ones. Remember, the g4 is Tiny it was designed to be used in embeded apps as well as desktops - and thus was designed with as few transistors as possible. AMD and motorola have been working on a 'new' g4 that is basicly a redesign with a few more stages in the pipelines, allowing for much higher speeds.
-- man is machine
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
FalseConsciousness
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· Score: 2
Ooo, we are cranky, aren't we? Three things for you to read, then maybe you can follow your own advice and "think before you post":
1. IBM already has PPCs running at faster clock speeds than the MOT chips that are being used in Macs. It's a contractual/political problem that keeps these from being used by Apple.
2. The 20-30% improvement is an improvement in performance, not lock speed as you assume. So the math is irrelevant.
3. The advantages of "competition" within the AIM alliance are often cancelled out by the alliance itself. In PPC development, no partner wants to release a technology to the others when it could use it for a non-PPC-related benefit to itself. Also, if MOT can keep faster IBM PPCs from being used by Apple, how can competition be functioning correctly?
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
PenguinX
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· Score: 4
Everyone dogs MacOS - perhaps it is not the newest OS in the world and unquestionably it has it's roots for being one of the first GUI OSes out there. But let's be honest - the only idea behind MacOS to begin with was to create a perfectly functional operating system. The concept of resource forking was unthought of prior to this, and still is for the most part.
Honestly we need to give MacOS more credit, and Apple for that matter. How many people have ever been able to make a user friendly unix? or frighteningly enough a cooperative multitasking operating system work so well?
I am a Linux bigot and as much as the next - but we should give credit where due. Most of us come from the PC background where hardware needs to be kicked to work. From Apples camp the hardware is usually good enough to make do, so this concept is nearly oblivious to us.
Re:Wonder what Motorola has to say about this?
by
Darchmare
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· Score: 2
I don't know about the Starmax, but Power Computing came out with some damn fine boxen in its time (particularly the PowerTower Pro).
Faster chips are always good.
by
Lonesmurf
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· Score: 2
This, of course, means that Macs will be coming with some faster chips.
Why is it that the PowerPC chips have slowed down the rate at which new, faster chips have been released? I distinctly remember the iMac/G3 starting at ~300Mhz 2 years ago. Why is it that they have only climbed 200Mhz or so?
Perhaps AMD and intel have me brainwashed into thinking that every month new speeds should be coming out..
Re:Faster chips are always good.
by
ravenwing_np
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· Score: 4
Faster chips are nice, but what I really want is a faster front side bus. I've been working on a long running project that deals with processing lots of large multimedia data. Even though our CPUs have been getting faster, our processing isn't taking less time because we are being IO limited.
I'd much rather have a 400 Mhz cpu with a 400 Mhz bus then a 1.5 Ghz box sitting over a 133 Mhz bus.
Will IBM license the technology to other companies ? AMD used copper before Intel, could they now use SOI before Intel to gain an even bigger advantage ?
SOI is a silicon process that's been around for several years now. I'm pretty sure that Intel neither invented, nor patented, it. My old high-energy physics lab used the SOI process in some of the front-end detector chips for ATLAS at the LHC at CERN.
Do IBM not make x86 chips any more? They used to have their 'Blue Lightning' clock-tripled 486 clone, and later they manufactured Cyrix's stuff. But nowadays, they don't seem to be making 686es. That's a shame, since all the cool stuff they're doing for other architectures (copper, SOI) might benefit the PC world too.
Is it just me or does the consant flow of patent applications and new processor/storage technologies coming out of IBM remind you of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC in their heyday. It seems like the next generation of high-performance processors will need to include technology licensed from IBM in order to remain competitive. Are we seeing the rebirth of IBM?
It is true that IBM is a great innovator in HDD tech, but they really don't have much market share. How often do you come across an IBM drive in the field? They seem to price themselves out of the market.
Their SCSI LVD prives seemed quite competitave last time I bought a drive, it was only $10 more then the lowest price when I bought it (according to pricewatch). I gladly payed the extra $10 because of all the drive failures we have at work, IBMs are the most rare (HP was the most common, untill they left the biz), and they also start giving R/W soft failure errors hours or days before they actually go. I have never seen a hard failure on an IBM SCSI drive without soft failures before it. I want the chance to say "where is my DAT drive?" before the disk goes Tango Uniform.
Their IDE drives arn't as competitave, that might say more about the quality of their competiters drives then any lack of desire of IBMs to "own" the market. Maybe. It's not like I understand the PC hard disk market.
As far as CPUs go, I think your thery pays out better. RS/6000s have a mammoth profit margin. Far more then the PowerPC. Then again, maybe the same is true in the SCSI vs. IDE thing too.
It is true that IBM is a great innovator in HDD tech, but they really don't have much market share. How often do you come across an IBM drive in the field? They seem to price themselves out of the market. It wouldn't surprise me if they used similar thinking about their processors. Sure, people are willing to pay big money for the big steel, but are they willing to pay big money for a better G4? To my mind the dual G4 sounds far more promising.
-- "Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."
-- Dalai Lama
Re:PowerPC users have always been SOL.
by
JMZorko
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· Score: 3
... and to this I submit that the usefullness of a computer is not necessarily attached to the age of it's technology. In other words, people _use_ them, even if they're not the fastest anymore, or the biggest, or even the prettiest. I've got 2 Mac 8500s at home; one running MacOS 8.6 with a G3/366 card for audio stuff (i'm big into ambient music and sound experiments), the other running LinuxPPC on a 200MHz 604e for everything non-audio. Both of them continue to do everything I ask of them; the audio Mac still runs all of the latest Mac-based audio software well enough.
A lot of us are more interested in _doing things_ with the computer, even if it's 3 years old or more.
More info (probably won't be in Macs 'soon')
by
loki7
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· Score: 4
Despite what the poster said, this probably won't be appearing in Macs 'soon'. SOI requires redesigning the entire chip -- it's not just a different manufacturing process. The Register (everyone's favourite source of fun rumours!) has a much more techinically detailed article.
It's a shame that/. relies so heavily on zdnet for stories. They're always technically weak. The Register isn't always accurate, but at least they're not writing for PHBs.
There are two variations of the PowerPC architecture that are being marketed to two distinctly different markets.
The first variety, the IBM Power4, is for servers. This is the area of that should be of most interest to the Linux market at the moment. With two of these 64 bit processors on one chip and a 500 MHz bus between them (See this ZDnet article.) they will make killer e-commerce servers that will beat any x86 chip this year.
The second variety, the G4 from Motorola sports the 128 bit AltiVec vector processor. This caters to the graphics market that is Apple's bread & butter. It wipes out the P3 in applications that are optimized for AltiVec - even at a lowly 500 MHz clockspeed.
This processor is also of interest to the academic research/defense industry. Look at what makes a Cray, a Cray - you guessed it, vector processing. While I'm not comparing the G4 to a Cray, it's 128 bit vector processor does make a cluster of them a much cheaper alternative for algorithms/code designed for a vector processor.
The Linux Angle I've asked myslef over the past couple months why all the common x86 distros were introducing PPC versions? Surely the Linux on Mac market isn't large enough to make it worth trying to compete with the established players like LinuxPPC and Yellow Dog.
It is now that I realize what may be their underlying motive. -- I think we're going to see IBM pouring money into efforts to see to it that Linux/Apache/etc are optimized for their processor. Everyone wants to be a contender for potential IBM funding to sharpen Linux and other OSS for their fast hardware that isn't hamstrung by backwards compatability... This can give one of the lesser known distros an opportunity to steal some of RedHat's mindshare. -- Just a thought, but who knows?
Since this isn't breaking news (other sources had articles about it on Monday), it would be nice if/. invested a bit of time investigating these stories first. Sorry if I sound a bit bitter, but it's been a long time since/. was the first place I saw something really cool. Other sites tend to beat them to the punch, and provide better coverage to boot. That's unfortunate, because I really like the/. format.
1) IBM is rolling these new technologies (copper interconnects, SOI, etc.) into their own, proprietary, platforms (RS/6000, AS/400, S/390) first for what should be obvious reasons. They are competing with the Intel server chips by producing non-intel servers. Why just make a profit selling the chip when you can really rake in the dough selling the chip, system, software, and services? You can be sure that it would take a $hitload of Athlons to match the profit produced by a single S/390 or big AS/400.
2) IBM also directly competes with Intel on several other fronts, namely communications chips. Intel makes more than x86 chips, even though those are Intel's cash cow. IBM is more than willing to license these technologies to Intel's competitors in the semi market on the theory that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Back in the mid nineties when Apple was migrating to PPC and the Taligent venture with IBM was begun (to be orphaned and starved to death), in the days of Pink and Copland, there was talk of IBM buying Apple. IBM had never quite gotten the consumer space and Apple had never quite gotten into the business space; they were considered a beautiful match. The OS's Apple was working on were more geared towards a server and client relationship. With Macs becoming ROMless and Darwin booting accross platforms it would seem no big deal to bring Darwin to IBMs server series (the PPC based ones as well). Though there are some major differences between the G4 Apple uses and the chips IBM, if Darwin can run on x86 I am sure it can run IBM's PPC. Perhaps this (the opening of Darwin) could lead to the begining of the fruits of IBM's relations with Apple from the 90's. Darwin as an alternative *nix-like os for IBM servers? Drive-less iMacs net booting from Big Blue's Big Iron? SOI for everyone?! -PSM
Slashdot Mirror
From the ZDNet article:
SOI can be used in one of two ways. It can be used to create low-power chips. In this case, by keeping clock speed the same, SOI would reduce the power consumption of a chip by two to three times.
Apple already claims >5 hour battery life for Powerbooks. With a 2 to 3 times power consumption decrease for the processor, how much more battery life can they get?
-jimbo
"Hold me Bob!" "I would if I could man!" -Larry and Bob in VeggieTales
Agreed - I miss Umax also.
hey, don't forget that the g4's will also be going multi-processor soon...
so a 2 Ghz G4... yummy
I don't mean this to sound like flamebait, but it always seems that the PowerPC is playing second or third fiddle.
/. readers will agree..
I think this is flamebait...
It gets knocked aside by x86 users on the desktop due to lack of applications.
Same thing always happens to Linux around here, but everyone seems to defend that OS.
Yeah, sure, it's nifty to do graphics/desktop publishing, but if you're serious about that, you're running an Amiga or BeOS anyway.
The Mac decimates both the Amiga and BeOS in the graphics and desktop publishing arena's. The Amiga used to be (and still is somewhat) a wonderous machine to work with video with, but it's been floundering the past several years due to not really having an owner that's been willing to pour money into it. The BeOS, yes, has a more elegant architecture, but alas, it lacks color management, postscript font support, and applications from Quark, Adobe, and Macromedia. Until it gets more apps, the BeOS will remain an oddity to everyone except it's core users.
I recall reading once that a Mac makes a nice webserver because it's too dumb to really break into or do any damage.
Well, that's true, but if you're buying a mac specifically to serve web pages, in most cases I'd say that you just wasted a pile of money... Or else you're limiting your sites functionality serverly. The mac is missing a lot of support i the server arena. Doubtless, that will change when OS X arrives, but until then.
So why do people insist on using the Power PC?
Because 99% of the computers that use PowerPC's run the Mac OS. And some people prefer that OS to those available from Microsoft, IBM, Redhat, Be, or any other. They even like it enough to spend a few more dollars on the hardware i nwhich to run it.
Why do companies like IBM spend development dollars trying to push an outdated chip architecture, when they could be pushing next generation technologies.
With Apple shipping nearly a million iMacs and G3/G4's per quarter and with Power PC chips selling for (a complete stab in the dark) $250 a piece, that translates to a BILLION dollars a year of business for IBM and Motorolla. If you ran a company, would you turn down that much money?
The PowerPC chip isn't geared towards "PC's" as it's name implies... At least in my world, i equate PC with "x86 compatible". People shouldn't be buying Power PC based computers unless (for now) they want to run the Mac OS, or for the small percentage of folks (Linux PPC users) they value to superior hardware designs enough that a few more dollars doesn't hurt. Asd for your 3 year time limit, I don't quite get it. Are you suggesting that Mac users should abandon the platform they chose and switch to Windows or Linux after 3 years for no reason? I've been computing for 15 or so years and the Mac is still my favorite platform for getting work done on and I'm sure plenty of other
True.
Motorola/IBM own the copper technology, and Intel is severly lagging in developing it.
Not really. No one owns copper technology. IBM and Motorola both have patents on manufacturing processors with copper but any company that wants to can develop their own process of making chips with copper interconnects.
AMD Licenses it from IBM, rather that re-invent the wheel.
Actually, AMD licenses it from Motorola.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
Where the PPC scores here is that it is fundametally RISC by nature, although IIRC the PPC has a basic 68k emulation frontend for legacy purposes. However most modern apps on the Mac are tailored for the PPC, and as such, can use some of the funky RISC features to gain a speed advantage. For example, some Photoshop filters will render quicker on a G4@400MHz than on an equivalent, or higher spec x86 box, simply because the architecture is less cluttered, and the compilers don't have to take the legacy baggage into consideration. The same applies to the Alpha, in that by using MHz as a speed comparison between architectures, you are doing the more modern chips a major disservice, because they don't need to be clocked as high to gain comparable application performance.
As for the colour and font handling, he's right. The Macintosh's ease of use made it a very strong contender in the DTP arena early on, and as a result, programs like ATM and ColorSync allow a far greater degree of output control than the Windows (or Linux, sorry guys) equivalent. This is just by the nature of having existed on the platform longer, however.
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
I can't figure out why a Copper PowerPC has not been released yet. It has always been in the wings for 2 years.
The copper PPC has been out for a long time. I believe G3s faster than 400 MHz and all G4s are on copper. Where's the copper X86?
Also, I remember way back when in the days of the optimism over the open PowerPC Platform, there was some information about a PowerPC 615 processor with built-in x86 emulation. I don't remember if the chip was designed by Motorola or IBM, but that should have been great technology released to the public.
IBM. Lots of potentially great technology gets scuttled for technical or business reasons. Since IBM never officially admitted the chip existed, we'll never know why it was pulled. Maybe Intel threatened IBM's supply of Pentiums and the emulation wasn't good enough for IBM to tell Intel to take a hike. Or maybe they didn't think it would sell well. Or it didn't work at all. Or maybe it was only a rumor.
It is really a shame that the PowerPC G4 is currently only at 500 MHz. RISC processors should easily have a MHz advantage because they are simpler in design. Man, imagine a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 available today. People would definitely notice.
IBM demonstrated a 1.1 GHz PowerPC a year ago at (IIRC) HotChips '99. Current rumor is that IBM is ready, able and willing to ship G4s at 780 MHz but has business reasons for not doing so.
Don't believe for a second that the super-duper high clock speeds you see in the PC world is more than an Intel/AMD pissing contest. Neither company is capable of shipping large quantities of their highest-rated chips. In the absence of the PIII/Athlon rivalry, PCs today would be topping out at about 700 MHz, and they'd be comparable to today's top PowerPCs.
So, IBM, prove your new advantage.
IBM clearly likes to hold its cards close to the vest. They don't hype, they just quietly deliver.
Does this mean I'm happy with the current state of affairs? Of course not! I want a quad-1GHz-G4 PowerBook NOW, dang it! :-)
As this is getting into a fest of Mac Bashing I though I'd try and do something on-topic. So here is a little explaination of how IBM's method works (note this is not a new method as the Silicon on Saphire method has been around for years .. however IBM seems to have altered the idea by replacing the expensive saphire with cheap silica)
/. would allow that ;) ) -mG
A normal NMOSFET transistor would to something like this (side view)
Drain Source
MMMMM Gate MMMMMM
OOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOO
OOOOMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMOOOOO
SSSS######SSSSSSSSSS######SSSSS
SSSS######SSSSSSSSSS######SSSSS
SSSS######SSSSSSSSSS######SSSSS
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
(M Metal track) (# Doped silicon)
(O Silica) (S Intrinsic silicon)
When the transistor is in operation it has a charged region (depletion zone) around it as such...
Drain Source
MMMMM Gate MMMMMM
OOOOMMMMMMMMMMM MOOOOO
OOOOMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMOOOOO
SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS
SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS
SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS
SS@SSSSSSSSSSS@@@@@@@@@@@@@@SSS
SSS@@@@@@@@@@@SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
This charged region (boundary shown with @ signs) acts as capacitor which is bad (slows down the operation of the transistor). What the process does is to place a layer of oxide below the chip as shown
MMMMM MMMMMM
OOOOMMMMMMMMMMM MOOOOO
OOOOMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMOOOOO
SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS
SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS
SS@S######SSSSSSSSSS######S@SSS
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
This stops some of the charged layer from forming as the charge cannot move (easily) in the oxide. Which speeds up the transistor.
'Tis a nice idea doing it with silica though which should make the chips very affordable (ie. only 2 or 3 extra process stages)
(btw. this is my on words no trade secrets - not that
Physicists are said to stand on one another's shoulders while programmers stand on one another's toes.
Because IBM has been able to do wonders to this chip that Motorola hasn't. Being that there is still oh what? how many months until the end of the year? The G4 in it's current state, *should* be capable of 800Mhz solid, easy, but motorola just has been unable to fab them at this speed.Tan extra tweak of development (such as this) and better fabbing techniques, and business trends are where I got my number.
I had a Starmax, it was crap. Actually *most* of the clones had watered down bus speeds, and were overall weird - even though Apple "approved" them apple was lax in what they said could happen, but then again Gil was driving the company and he's not exactally the brightest boy in the world.
On a different note, since the upturn of Apple Motorola has made a ton of money off just the sales of the chips, it would definately be in their best business plan to fab the chip correctly.
Thats nothing compared to the Duron layer! IBM can't possibly produce a chip with as much sensitivity as the AMD!
sig this
the more competition to intel, the better. look what happened with AMD...i know powerpc is not x86, but it does run linux. maybe intel will get some more needed kicks in the pants.
Motorola has been trying to get a G4 over 600Mhz to no avail, while IBM has them well beyond that. This move will yet again prove that IBM is more interested in Apple then longtime Motorola. I would imagine that if Apple went solely w/ IBM that we would see a 1 - 1.2Ghz G4 by the end of the year.
Yum!
This, of course, means that Macs will be coming with some faster chips.
Why is it that the PowerPC chips have slowed down the rate at which new, faster chips have been released? I distinctly remember the iMac/G3 starting at ~300Mhz 2 years ago. Why is it that they have only climbed 200Mhz or so?
Perhaps AMD and intel have me brainwashed into thinking that every month new speeds should be coming out..
Rami James
Pixel Pusher
--
rJames.org - illustration
Will IBM license the technology to other companies ?
AMD used copper before Intel, could they now use SOI before Intel to gain an even bigger advantage ?
My Webcam
Do IBM not make x86 chips any more? They used to have their 'Blue Lightning' clock-tripled 486 clone, and later they manufactured Cyrix's stuff. But nowadays, they don't seem to be making 686es. That's a shame, since all the cool stuff they're doing for other architectures (copper, SOI) might benefit the PC world too.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Is it just me or does the consant flow of patent applications and new processor/storage technologies coming out of IBM remind you of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC in their heyday. It seems like the next generation of high-performance processors will need to include technology licensed from IBM in order to remain competitive. Are we seeing the rebirth of IBM?
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
A lot of us are more interested in _doing things_ with the computer, even if it's 3 years old or more.
Falling You - beautiful
It's a shame that /. relies so heavily on zdnet for stories. They're always technically weak. The Register isn't always accurate, but at least they're not writing for PHBs.
There are two variations of the PowerPC architecture that are being marketed to two distinctly different markets.
The first variety, the IBM Power4, is for servers. This is the area of that should be of most interest to the Linux market at the moment. With two of these 64 bit processors on one chip and a 500 MHz bus between them (See this ZDnet article.) they will make killer e-commerce servers that will beat any x86 chip this year.
The second variety, the G4 from Motorola sports the 128 bit AltiVec vector processor. This caters to the graphics market that is Apple's bread & butter. It wipes out the P3 in applications that are optimized for AltiVec - even at a lowly 500 MHz clockspeed.
This processor is also of interest to the academic research/defense industry. Look at what makes a Cray, a Cray - you guessed it, vector processing. While I'm not comparing the G4 to a Cray, it's 128 bit vector processor does make a cluster of them a much cheaper alternative for algorithms/code designed for a vector processor.
The Linux Angle
I've asked myslef over the past couple months why all the common x86 distros were introducing PPC versions? Surely the Linux on Mac market isn't large enough to make it worth trying to compete with the established players like LinuxPPC and Yellow Dog.
It is now that I realize what may be their underlying motive. -- I think we're going to see IBM pouring money into efforts to see to it that Linux/Apache/etc are optimized for their processor. Everyone wants to be a contender for potential IBM funding to sharpen Linux and other OSS for their fast hardware that isn't hamstrung by backwards compatability... This can give one of the lesser known distros an opportunity to steal some of RedHat's mindshare. -- Just a thought, but who knows?
--Aaron Greenberg
Since this isn't breaking news (other sources had articles about it on Monday), it would be nice if /. invested a bit of time investigating these stories first. Sorry if I sound a bit bitter, but it's been a long time since /. was the first place I saw something really cool. Other sites tend to beat them to the punch, and provide better coverage to boot. That's unfortunate, because I really like the /. format.
1) IBM is rolling these new technologies (copper interconnects, SOI, etc.) into their own, proprietary, platforms (RS/6000, AS/400, S/390) first for what should be obvious reasons. They are competing with the Intel server chips by producing non-intel servers. Why just make a profit selling the chip when you can really rake in the dough selling the chip, system, software, and services? You can be sure that it would take a $hitload of Athlons to match the profit produced by a single S/390 or big AS/400.
2) IBM also directly competes with Intel on several other fronts, namely communications chips. Intel makes more than x86 chips, even though those are Intel's cash cow. IBM is more than willing to license these technologies to Intel's competitors in the semi market on the theory that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
SirWired
Back in the mid nineties when Apple was migrating to PPC and the Taligent venture with IBM was begun (to be orphaned and starved to death), in the days of Pink and Copland, there was talk of IBM buying Apple. IBM had never quite gotten the consumer space and Apple had never quite gotten into the business space; they were considered a beautiful match. The OS's Apple was working on were more geared towards a server and client relationship. With Macs becoming ROMless and Darwin booting accross platforms it would seem no big deal to bring Darwin to IBMs server series (the PPC based ones as well). Though there are some major differences between the G4 Apple uses and the chips IBM, if Darwin can run on x86 I am sure it can run IBM's PPC. Perhaps this (the opening of Darwin) could lead to the begining of the fruits of IBM's relations with Apple from the 90's. Darwin as an alternative *nix-like os for IBM servers? Drive-less iMacs net booting from Big Blue's Big Iron? SOI for everyone?! -PSM