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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.
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.
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).
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.