POWER Processors, SMT and the True Origins of AI

Crow writes "IBM developerWorks has posted an interview with John McCalpin, one of the guys who works on the POWER line of processors. He discusses work on POWER5 (and how the design process works at IBM -- he's also involved in work on the POWER7) and defends the decision that IBM doesn't hand-tune their ICs (as has often been criticized on Ars Technica. Also covers some of the features in the POWER processors, like SMT, the Hypervisor and virtualization -- even addresses the question of whether AIX was designed by space aliens or not. The POWER5 just broke the 3 million transactions per minute barrier on the TPC-C benchmark."

Comments

POWER and desktop computing

[user9918277462]

The IBM POWER line (including PPC) is the one and only true threat to Intel's dominance of the hardware market. Remember that AMD pays royalties to Intel for every chip it sells, which pretty much condemns them to permanent second-place competitor.

Once the PPC 970 (or some successor) starts shipping in commodity beige boxes, however, the entire marketplace will be turned upside down. Can you imagine buying the generic equivalent of a dual proc G5 for $600? Sweet.

Re:POWER and desktop computing

[user9918277462]

In the early 90s Intel's dominance was just ramping up. Remember back then? The cheapest PC you could get cost $1500 and was a 33 MHz 486 with 4MB RAM.

In 2004 it's going on 20 years. We all know that market leadership is temporary, it is inevitable that someone will knock Intel from the pedestal. The question is not if but when, and by whom.

Re:POWER and desktop computing

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is Windows supposed to support IBM chips suddenly? Seriously, am I missing something?

Yes.

Re:POWER and desktop computing

[LWATCDR]

Actually the new Xbox will use the PPC. What do you think .net is all about except to free microsoft from Intel. Why else would you write a vm that only runs on one ISA?