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IBM Plans Collaboration On Power Architecture
TheInternet writes "According to CNET News, IBM has made a series of announcements regarding the opening-up of the Power chip architecture. The story lacks technical details, but apparently, IBM is going to divulge more information about Power/PowerPC, and expects collaboration from the industry on the future of the chip. Nick Donofrio is quoted as saying: 'We will free electronics manufacturers from the limitations of proprietary microprocessor architectures', and Red Hat and Sony are two companies listed as taking part. Power5 was also shown, as was the Blue Gene/L supercomputer, using 32 500MHz processors to achieve 128 gigaflops."
Another interesting .
link at the Inquirer
Seems IBM is courting third party mobo makers to make PowerPC boards.
Their emracing linux and opening up their hardware platform. Sound Like
their getting their troops in line for THE desktop battle.
I, for one, would love to be running Debian Linux on a ATX PowerPC board. Of
course, they would have to sell enough of them to get the price down.
Good luck to 'em.
I, for one, welcome our OpenPowerPC overlords.
No, seriously, I think this is a great step. When we get to control the functionality and content of our silicon, and contribute to the specs, I think a LOT of creative people will come forward and throw out some truly awe-inspiring ideas. Look what happened with Linux, *BSD, countless GNU projects. The list goes on, people. I think this could be a stepping stone towards getting some really new chip technology on a roll.
Lets just hope this is a sincere effort on IBM's behalf.
As you all know, the costs of developing new chip architectures is escalating. However, once designed, chips can be replicated at relatively low cost (at least by comptent fabs like IBMs). So, to maximize profits despite the high upfront costs, what is one to do?
Design a kick-ass chip, sign up a lot of partners to establish street credibility, maintain processor improvement momentum, deliver chips on time, then sell as many chips as possible, of course! AMD performed in some, but certainly not all of these aspects, hence their current standing in the chip industry. Don't even get me started on the slow train wreck called Motorola.
The power architecture was always meant to be flexible, ranging from the $10,000+ quad-core uber-chip Power5's on down... So it's only logical that we will find stripped-down versions of the Power5 architecture in everything from Apple Desktops to next-gen consoles from Sony and MS.
As I see it, this is a great PR step by IBM to get some mindshare from the growing Linux camp. When you combine the incredible performance, lower prices, etc. of the 970 architecture, folks like Intel will have to take notice sooner or later, particularly when it hits their most profitable processor lines. However, Apple may not be happy to face competition in a market segment that it has had to itself for now.
As for MS and their PowerPC line of NT or whatever, who cares. If they need to make the switch, they'll find a way. In the meantime, it's the Linux/Unix folks who'll benefit the most from no longer being squeezed between SPARC and XEON pricing.