2005 Good Year for Power Architecture

An anonymous reader wrote to mention an IBM article looking back on what the piece calls the best year ever for the Power Architecture. From the article: "While IBM is considered by many to be an 800lb. gorilla, in the microelectronics space, it is actually very small -- last year IBM was way down at number 21 on the iSuppli list of the top 25 semiconductor suppliers worldwide. Now, that isn't necessarily a bad thing: for instance, it means that IBM Semiconductor solutions is small and nimble and competitive -- and this agility (coupled with the fact that we do get to share Research and some other resources with the parts of IBM that are 800lb. gorillas) has led some to predict that the IBM chips division will be named the fastest growing semiconductor supplier of 2005. In fact, there is a very good chance that IBM may regain the coveted #18 spot on iSuppli's list this year!"

Comments

spot 18

[gcnaddict]

"there is a very good chance that IBM may regain the coveted #18 spot on iSuppli's list this year!"

Whats so special about spot 18?

Re:spot 18

[kfg]

Whats so special about spot 18?

It's twice nine which is a magic number because it's three threes.

KFG

Re:spot 18

[Anonymous Coward]

"Whats so special about spot 18"

It's barely legal.

Trying to make themselves feel better

[Colonel Panic]

Sounds like the Power PC group tryin gto make themselves feel better about losing their biggest customer, Apple.

Re:Trying to make themselves feel better

[taskforce]

I don't have statistics to back it up, but I can prettymuch guarantee that with the release of the Xbox360 and PS3 both using POWER based chips, Apple aren't IBM's biggest customer.

Re:Trying to make themselves feel better

[NDPTAL85]

Yeah but consoles are a one generation only kind of business. No one can predict what CPUs will be used in the next generation of consoles.

Re:Trying to make themselves feel better

[FatherOfONe]

"Well, consider that only 400k or so XBoxes have shipped and 0 PS3s have shipped, and Apple shipped 600k iMacs and PowerMacs in Q4 2005 (both of which use Power based G5s), Apple is STILL IBM's biggest customer.

Now Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo may have potentially larger markets, but right now Apple is still shipping more G5s than Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo combined, that and each G5 is higher margin than a Cell based CPU."

Ok, I don't know where you get 400k. I hope that you are correct, but from what I here there will be around 3 million 360's sold by July of this year if they hold their current pace. Now as far as PS3's go, it would be a fair estimate to say that they will be close to their 90 million PS2's sold in 5 years. So lets just say they average 10 million a year for the next 5 years of PS3's. Now you also didn't mention all the hub manufacturers out there like Cisco. They also use power chips. When you start to add it up, the loss of Apple for the gain of Microsoft and Sony was huge win for IBM.

So in short Apple switching to Intel is a small loss for power, BUT there are some serious advantages now for Power as well. Microsoft and Sony will not require a new fab to be built for ~5 years! Cisco cares about the performance of the Power chip, but they care more about the power consumption. Intel on the other hand needs to focus on mobile chips, desktop chips and server chips. They will need to build their 65nm fabs as fast as possible then spend billions on the next version. Granted Intel spends around 10Billion a year in R&D so they can handle it as long as Wintel desktops keep selling like they do.

Now the real quesiton is why did Apple switch? This is off topic, but it doesn't make sense that they switched to a 32bit chip FROM a 64bit chip. Now if they would have switched to x86-64, that would have made better sense. I do feel for all those poor saps who are going to buy PPC or X86 Mac in the next year or so. I feel for them because I went through the 68k to PPC migraiton and bought all the load of crap that Apple fed back then. It is the same load of crap they are trying to spin today.... fat binaries.... blah blah blah. The truth is that if you go with a new X86 machine a bunch of your old stuff will not work and you will be praying that someone will code a new version that works as well as your old one did. Now after this painfull migration is over in a couple of years and if Apple moves to X86-64, then they will probably be better off. They just better pray (not that many in Apple belive in God), that sales of their Ipod don't faulter.

Apple has some other issues that they need to address. One is their view of open source. They use it a TON in their OS yet their sales guys go around and bash it whenever they get a chance. The next is their view on technologies such as Java. Again their sales guys go around and bash it, yet all their Java apps will not need to be ported to this new architecture. One sales guy just recently said to me that he would NEVER load any JVM on his system because he hates slow Java applications. I then informed him that it was loaded by default. He smiled and told me he knew that and he was "just kidding", but I have to wonder how many poor saps he talks to that don't know that and then repeat the same crap he just said. Lastly, and perhaps the biggest issue is why on earth would our development shop write software for X86 Macintosh? Lets look at the marketshare as it is and as it will be for the next few years. What percentage of all new desktops do you believe will be running X86 OSX? .05%? Heck some vendors just NOW started to fully support OSX! RedHat Linux Desktop and SuSE Linux on the destkop will have more clients that OSX on X86. Perhaps Ubuntu will even have more desktops! I wish Apple well, but it will be far far easier on them to reign in their sales guys and send out a message to ANYONE to help support OSX on X86, be that open source apps and or Java applications.

I

Re:Trying to make themselves feel better

[batzn]

Why did they make the switch? Easy one. Laptops. Powerbooks/iBooks make for more than half of the Mac revenue of Apple and there's currently no PPC chip available that can stand up to the Pentium M. Nor does anyone have one on his PPC roadmap.

Or do you think the Apple folks *like* to be hopelessly behind when it comes to portable computing power?

(And, yes, I too hate the fact that they switch. Now I'll be in the same boat with the Gigahertz bean counters ...)

Re:Trying to make themselves feel better

[adrianmonk]

Now the real quesiton is why did Apple switch? This is off topic, but it doesn't make sense that they switched to a 32bit chip FROM a 64bit chip.

There's a reason that doesn't make sense: it probably isn't happening. Yes, Intel does make 32-bit chips, but most (all?) of its recent chips have 64-bit extensions. It's entirely possible, and I would say also quite likely, that Apple will restrict itself to the subset of Intel chips that have 64-bit capabilities. It's the only sane thing to do, and as far as I can tell, there's no penalty for doing it. Heck, for what it's worth, I'll speculate that the reason Apple didn't switch sooner was that they wanted to wait until the x86 world settled on a 64-bit instruction set architecture.

I do feel for all those poor saps who are going to buy PPC or X86 Mac in the next year or so. I feel for them because I went through the 68k to PPC migraiton and bought all the load of crap that Apple fed back then. It is the same load of crap they are trying to spin today.... fat binaries.... blah blah blah. The truth is that if you go with a new X86 machine a bunch of your old stuff will not work

It remains to be seen how well the PowerPC-emulating technology will work. I personally thought that the 68k-emulating technology in the 68k to PowerPC transition worked pretty OK. I don't think it had perfect compatibility, but it did run lots of apps, and I never personally had a problem other than speed of emulation. (And although I did not personally own a Macintosh at the time, I was a system administrator at a site that had lots and lots of Macintosh systems.)

Also, regardless of how Apple spun the thing, doesn't it seem that some sort of transition was necessary? As I recall, several other manufacturers transitioned away from 68k before Apple did (such as when Sun chose SPARC for Sun 4 machines instead of the 68k processors they'd used in Sun 3 machines), and it was fairly clear that the 68k line was dying. Even if it wasn't clear then, it is definitely dead now (even Palm OS has transitioned to ARM!), so it was the right decision to do. The only question is whether Apple did it at the right time and did a good job with it, and I can't fault them for either one.

Re:Trying to make themselves feel better

[ravyne]

Apple was never IBMs biggest customer, PPC is everywhere, cars, routers, smart devices of all types, granted that Freescale has the majority of these markets, but IBM has more than enough share to outweight Apple. I'll grant that Apple was IBMs highest-profile customer, but I've seen numbers that place revenue generated by Apple at fewer than 1% of IBMs business. Not only that, but they're going to be manufacturing CPUs for all of the next generation game consoles. The Xbox 360 has already sold more units than Apple would have over the ~4 years or more (keep in mind that the only IBM processor in the Macs is the G5, The G4s are still provided by freescale.) How many PS2s, Xboxes, and Gamecubes have been sold worldwide? 150+ million combined, and that number is growing with each new generation (plus we're not even at the end of this generation's sales!) So IBM is looking at basically guaranteed sales of ~200 million PPC-based parts over the next 5-6 years. Apple doesn't even drive PPC development, its driven on both ends by the embedded and big-iron/server markets.

IBM won't be hurting by loosing Apple, neither will PPC. I am a bit sad to loose the only "mainstream" consumer-level PPC hardware, but there are some smaller PPC manufacturers such as Genesi to provide for the hardcore PPC fan market.

Re:Trying to make themselves feel better

[FatherOfONe]

"Intel on the other hand needs to focus on mobile chips, desktop chips and server chips."

What I mean by this is that Intel has to additionally focus on desktop performance against AMD. IBM does not need to worry about this market. This market has razor thin margins that only can be maintained by enormous sales. Quite a few people believe that this market is going away, or at best has leveled off and will not grow significantly.

"you say it like not beleiving in God is a problem for me it is an intelligence sign."

I say that from my dealings with Apple people. If they are so "proud" of their "Deversity" then why don't they show some of those people in their marketing? You say it is an intelligence sign.... You better hope you are correct :-) If not then you better start getting use to the temp of those uber hot Intel CPU's :-)

"Free software such as Linux is a competitor so why wouldn't they bash it if they get a chance? It's not like their principal target is geeks."

Good point! However please remember that those same "geeks" will help develop software for their machine that will have less than .05% marketshare the year it is out. Those same "geeks" will help convince other people that by buying a Macintosh they will actually be able to function in a "Microsoft" world. I just find it very ironic that a company that built their OS on the backs of open source developers would then stick a knife in it.

"having Apple on x86 CPUs can only help vendors deciding to port their software on MacOS X, it lowers the bar not increase it."

I wish that was the case. If you code in something other than Java and you company produces client code then here is your current environment.
1. OS9 - Still have a market using it.

2. OSX PPC - Large but now there are 4 versions and trying to validate your software on each one is a pain. This is why a lot of software vendors still only support 10.2 or 10.3. This currently has around 80% of the Apple market.

3. OSX X86 - Not out yet but at best these system will only hold a 5% share of the APPLE market the first year.

4. Linux - Lots of versions but RedHat and SuSE appear to be the leading candidates.

Now the last ones
5. Windows XP/2k
6. Windows 9X and Mel.

Those last two DOMINATE sales of most software vendors. Even the core Apple ones. Take the Adobe products... What percentage of sales do you believe Adobe gets from their Apple line vs their Windows line of products? From what I have been told is that it is way less than 10% of their sales, and I am being very generous here... So why should Adobe port yet again? I guess the question should be "why would Adobe port any apps in the next 3 years?" They might as well wait and see how the market pans out.... This adds to my point above, in that Apple should be begging any and all developers to port software to their platform.

"About Linux comparison: when I see reviews about MacOS X, I'm always surprised how stringent the reviewers are: they expect high quality from Apple and they're quite disappointed when they don't have it, unfortunately reviewers about Linux are far more tolerant because they don't expect (and don't get) such quality: the cracks between the many layers of a Linux's desktop are always showing.
Somehow I doubt that this can be fixed in one or two years, especially since HW makers don't help by hiding their spec (Nvidia, ATI, other..)."

We agree! However, I will say that the desktop Linux has come a LONG way over the last 3 years. It is a race for my $$$$ and I am curious who will win. I wish them all well.

Subtle sense of sarcasm?

[MattWhitworth]

I hope they're being sarcastic :) Last year they lost their biggest customer Apple, so it takes a fair bit of marketing spin to make it the best ever year! Whenever the G6 comes out, with low power consumption (if it does of course), that'll be a great year for the Power architecture.

Re:Subtle sense of sarcasm?

[damiam]

Apple was/is a relatively minor customer. The business from next-gen consoles (all of which use POWER chips) is/will be at least an order of magnitude larger than Apple.

Re:Subtle sense of sarcasm?

[1000StonedMonkeys]

Well, in terms of volume the XBox 360, PS3, and Revolution are going to get the Power architecture in a heck of a lot more homes than Apple ever could have.

Re:Subtle sense of sarcasm?

[2nd Post!]

Yes, but volume and margin aren't the same. That's like being excited at being the CPU supplier for iPods; 6m a quarter!

Of course it's nothing to laugh at, but it's a totally different market than the desktop CPU.

Re:Subtle sense of sarcasm?

[sco08y]

Apple shipped over 600k G5 desktops last quarter; Microsoft shipped only 400k XBox 360s this Christmas. Apple probably also shipped another 600k G5 desktops in the same period Microsoft shipped their consoles.

There's another issue. Desktop systems use a whole range of chips, including last year's model and the latest and greatest. Next year MS will be using the same chip they did this year.

Re:Subtle sense of sarcasm?

[Anonymous Coward]

The CPU supplier for iPods does over 400m a quarter. http://www.arm.com/ir/financialnews/10757.html

Re:Subtle sense of sarcasm?

[Arker]

Last year they lost their biggest customer Apple

Umm, no, Apple was never anywhere near their biggest customer. Apple was only notable for building PCs with power chips, but the vast majority of power chips never went into PCs. Apple was a rather small customer, and one that was constantly demanding special treatment.

Re:Subtle sense of sarcasm?

[renoX]

Sure but without spending on the latest tech, you'll get behind Intel and that's something IBM cannot afford..
The R&D for fabs must still be done for IBM's own POWER and joint venture with AMD but there is a client less to recoup the cost.
I always find it funny that IBM's say that they don't care about Apple because it was a low volume client, I bet that they don't sell that many high-end POWER CPU too, compared to the number of PPC micro-controllers sold, yet investements for the high-end tech is important: that's the next generation low end..
Plus as the grand-parend said, volume != margin.

Re:IBM Article By IBM

[kfg]

This is the bit that jumped out at me from the "anonymous" submission:

. . .we do get to share Research and some other resources . . .

A story about corporate blogging just two stories ago; and now a practical demonstration of astroturfing a public forum.

Happy New Year, same as the old.

KFG

Re:800lb. gorillas building processors

[game kid]

I thought, the chimpanses were the researchers?

Nah, they're busy writing Shakespeare, remember? ;)

Am I alone in thinking that...

[ubiquitin]

the only interesting thing about the Power architecture is that it runs PowerLinux?

Re:IBM Article By IBM

[Boogaroo]

This article is FROM IBM about IBM. The article is what is quoted and of course they're talking about themselves, so "WE" is a perfectly acceptable term to use in their own article.

Now, it may not seem newsworthy to some to put a navel gazing press release up on the front page, but some will find it interesting to get a glimpse of part of IBM's internal workings. Take it or leave it, the article is not some kind of Google ranking ploy.

Printers

[Flying pig]

A lot of printers use Power architecture (there's one near me, with a 600MHz processor, right now, and the speed with which it renders a full color A4 PDF is quite impressive.) Power is very good wherever there isn't a load of dead weight to keep supporting, which is why it seems to do so well in the embedded or non-"PC" market. As for Apple's decision - well, I fortunately don't have any shares in Apple. I'm not convinced that they will be able to make the world's best X86 portables, and that is the task they seem to have set themselves. I have an attic full of old Macs, and I now have no reason at all to acquire another one.

Re:See, good move apple!

[2nd Post!]

Right now Apple has the choice of supporting any of three different architectures:
Motorola/Freescale G4
IBM G5
Intel x86

They can choose the best CPU for their needs.

What's so idiotic about that?

Re:See, good move apple!

[SpinJaunt]

This is about POWER not PowerPC. There is a difference.

The world is too complex for this rating system

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality of chip design and manufacturing is far too complex for this rating system to mean anything useful. IBM has cross licensing pacts with just about everybody these days, viz. AMD, VIA, Intel, Sony, et al..

Re:Losing customers

[KarmaMB84]

just because Apple is selling their stuff at inflated prices, it doesn't mean that they're passing it on to IBM...

IBM 2-0 for 2005

[Nom du Keyboard]

IBM loses whiny Apple who is well known for beating up their chip suppliers every way from Sunday, while gaining XBox 360 and PS3, which will not only ship far more units than Apple over the next five years, but have already paid for the next generation of Power architecture.

Apple, in the meantime gets Intel, where they're not even close to being the big I's largest customer, and have only their prestige to trade for favors (compared to Dell, whose Intel loyalty is beyond understanding these days).

Re:IBM 2-0 for 2005

[femtoguy]

I think you underestimate the value of Apple for Intel. Intel spent billions of dollars developing the Itanium family of processors, which have been a complete failure in the market. They have also spent more millions developing MMX/SSE/SSE2/SSE3 and so on, and these have been barely used. Intel keeps developing new chip technologies in order to distance themselves from AMD and VIA, but Microsoft refuses to put them into use in their operating systems. Why not? Microsoft may be a software company, but they hate doing the work of developing software. They remind me of a piano student who says he loves playing piano, but hates practicing. Microsoft never bothered to do a decent job of porting Windows or Office to the Itanium, of to fully integrate MMX/SSE into their operating system because it would have been too much work. Compare that to Apple which went from 680x0 to PowerPC, and from PowerPC32 to PowerPC64 as soon as they had working silicon.

I believe that Intel has made big concessions to Apple because it knows that Apple will use every technology that they can to make MacOSX work well on Intel chips, and that that will shame Microsoft into finally getting off of its %@#^ and get developing. Well, and it makes good revenge for Microsoft's ignoring Itanium but releasing for AMD64.

Re:See, good move apple!

[2nd Post!]

They aren't forced to support Intel; they chose Intel for the x86 and will choose to drop Motorola and IBM eventually (possibly).

Nor were they forced to support IBM; they chose IBM for the G5 and dropped IBM for the G3.

The only CPU they are 'forced' to support is Motorola, because they don't have a replacement for the G4, until Intel.

Apple has a choice; they decided, two years ago, to go with IBM instead of Intel or AMD, though that choice existed too.

Today Apple decided to support x86, instead of AMD or IBM, and that's just another choice.

Small?

[6Yankee]

in the microelectronics space, it is actually very small

I thought everything in the microelectronics space was very small...

Re:Small?

[Halfbaked Plan]

Have you seen the die size on some of those big silicon monsters??

Mod "Ignorant" - 4.5 million macs in 2005 alone

[SuperKendall]

The consoles will have some catchup to do - in 2005 Apple sold about 4.5 million macintosh computers.

That's just 2005, in 2004 it was something like 3-4 million - and they've been selling PPC computers for a lot longer than two years.

Between the PS3 and the 360 there probably will be ten million chips going out next year, I'm just saying Apples contribution is not as insignificant as you make it sound. And even though Macs are moving to Intel next year they'll still be selling Quad G5's for some time.

It was a pretty good year for Sparc too...

[hutchike]

How come IBM gets free Slashdot publicity? And where exactly is the news in this article? Surely the IBM/Sony/Toshiba Cell chip more newsworthy than the Power architecture?

Personally I thought it was a particularly good year for Sun's Sparc processors - see this Forrester research article for example. Here are some recent Sun SPECjbb performance benchmarks against IBM's Power P5.

But since Sun isn't a leading Linux advocate, I don't expect them to get Slashdot front page coverage like IBM seems to...

800 lb Gorilla?

[bergeron76]

Man, I remember back when it was just a 500lb Gorilla!

Times certainly have changed.