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PowerPC Goes 64 bit
prostoalex writes "ExtremeTech runs a story about IBM planning to introduce a new 64-bit PowerPC architecture for desktops in October at the Microprocessor Forum. The conference agenda tells us that "this processor is an 8-way superscalar design that fully supports Symmetric MultiProcessing. The processor is further enhanced by a vector processing unit implementing over 160 specialized vector instructions and implements a system interface capable of up to 6.4GB/s"." There's also a News.com story.
Hmmm. Perhaps all the doom and gloom about PPC's future is smoke after all.
:)
Look like Apple on X86 isn't even a remote possiblity now.
Is that bad?
the fact that PowerPC high end is comeing down to the low end well who whould have that coming .....
the intresting part will be a 1.2GHz ARM part from Samsung useing the Alpha technology
(they say its ARM10 but I think thats wrong and its just ARMv5 complient but that sounds bad in marketing speak so thedy said it was like an ARM10(I think I am not sure) )
regards
John Jones
Motorola's 85xx processor, aka G5, is 64-bit, if this article is to be believed.
Is this IBM just coming out with their own 64-bit PPC core? I thought Apple, Motorola and IBM were in an alliance? Seems to me that its quite a competitive alliance, eh?
Back in 1993-1994 when IBM was still working on the OS/2 for PowerPC and WorkPlace OS, and Taligent and "Pink" were still on the drawing board, IBM was planning to release the PowerPC 620 Series, a 64-bit version of the PowerPC 604. They intended to use it to run a 64-bit version of OS/2 that ran on the Mach kernel.
The design was scrapped because back then the manufacturing process was way too expensive to be cost effective in mass producing the chip. And we all know what happened to PowerPC OS/2.
http://www.byte.com/art/9411/sec8/art5.htm
The original specs for POWER/PowerPC CPU's were 64/32 bit anyways. This was set in stone over 10 years ago.
The great thing is that PPC-64 is that it's natively code compatible with PPC-32. No ISA 'extentions' (like x86-64), or instruction convertion (like Itanium), just a simple processor mode switch.
Apple would be a fool not to jump on this CPU for their high-end workstations or low cost servers.
This sounds like a beautiful processor, and I'm guessing it's why they contracted a plant in upstate New York to manufacture the .1-micron chips. I'm thinking that this is the mutant brain-child of the Power4 and the G4. Kind of like a miniaturized Power4 with a vector-processing unit, running at 64-bits and possibly with 32-bit PPC binary compatibility built-in. It would be nice if they could apply double the SMP capability to 32-bit code.
Hopefully they'll write a really efficient compiler for it. This could be the chip to launch Mac OS X into the enterprise market.
Karma: Ran over your dogma.
If I recall correctly, when Nintendo had IBM create the processor for the gamecube, IBM retained the rights to fiddle the their specialized PPC chip, then resell it. I'm wondering if the vector instructions are spillover from the Gamecube chip (I know it does a lot of fast vector math).
Power 4 architecture has an I/O architecture that is WAY too expensive for workstation/low end server use. The PowerPC 64bit, however, would be quite a CPU. To see if Apple is interested, look to see if BSD runs on Power Architectures ...
It's already there, been there for some time, and IBM told me that Apple had Darwin and some GUI running. Apple just needs the market to see that it weould be worth the investment in a new mobo/system design.
dot-sig.
Power4 has *huge* cooling requirements, despite being copper-interconnect and all that. (it also has something like 5800 pins, btw, drawing somewhere in the range of 100A worth of current, IIRC) -- I wonder how much cooling needs to be for the 64-bit power PC if they are based on the Power4 design?
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Actually, the PPC has usually run much cooler than the equivalent Intel and AMD chips. It's what lets Apple get away with some of the case design decisions they make. It also is going to be a plus for them as they get more into the server market. Lower monthly cooling bills is a significant recurring savings.
My bet is that it's either it's reverse engineered or it's licensed, not that it's a variant. Apple isn't likely to want a variant different enough that Motorola's lawyers could claim infringement.
Who'd a thunk it, we've arrived at a day when IBM is the reverse engineering firm!
RISC
PowerPC architecture is an example of a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) architecture. As a result:
Technically, a developer can use any GPR for anything. For example, there is no "stack pointer register"; a programmer could use any register for that purpose. In practice, it is useful to define a set of conventions so that binary objects can interoperate with different compilers and pre-written assembly code.
I think it deserves mention that OpenPPC.org is an IBM-supported initiative to bring OpenPPC-based machines to us commoners.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
One of the reasons Apple has stuck with Motorola's PPC chips vs. IBM PowerX chips is the AltiVec units on the PPC chips. This new chip, while based on the Power4 chip is geared towards desktop use and not server use. Think of a passenger car vs a semi-truck. They both do basicly the same thing but are more optimized for certain uses. The desktop chip needs to be quickly responsive to a wide variety but small concurrent number of processes or threads while the server chip needs to handle large numbers of threads or requests to do pretty much the same thing (file access, database access, ect.).
IBM's just bringing down a high horsepower diesel and gearing it for passenger use. They're also throwing in AltiVec type of processes which Apple really likes/needs. One more reason why going to X86 chips would be difficult; no AltiVec.
I drank what? -- Socrates