IBM's juiced Power6 stomps poor, old Power5+
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A 2x joint ISSCC At a time when rivals have given up on juicing their processors, IBM plans to crank the heck out of Power6. The dual-core chip due out by mid-2007 will come in "just shy" of 5GHz and flaunt double the performance of today's Power5.â¦
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IBM has introduced three new POWER5 processor-based servers that the company says outpace Sun and HP in performance records and establish a new standard for server virtualization capabilities.
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AUGUST 17, 2004  - IBM today launched a new one-to-four-way midrange Power5 server that features higher performance and several configurations to meet a wide range of user needs.
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IBM on Tuesday unveiled the eServer i5 550, a new addition to its Power 5-based lineup that it&#39;s aiming at mid-sized business.
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IBM next month will finish transitioning its core pSeries and iSeries server lines to the Power5 chip when it starts shipping three new high-end systems, two of which support as many as 64 processors.
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In 2005, IBM plans to bring a significant feature from higher-end servers to the next generation of its PowerPC 970 processor line used in Apple Computer machines and Big Blue&#39;s own blade servers.
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IBM is beefing up both its System p and Power-based Unix systems and its i Servers, once dubbed AS/400. Now, Linux-based binaries created for x86-based PC environments will be able to run unmodified on IBM Unix servers.
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IBM will push its Power5 line of servers down into the low end of the market, taking Linux with it, when it unwraps an aggressively priced series of Linux-only systems on Monday that will go up against the offerings of Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.
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(InfoWorld) - IBMÂ is pulling out the heavy artillery in its quest to build custom chips for both telephony backbone and handheld wireless devices, announcing a processor family built with silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology that is usually reserved for server processors. By borrowing SOI technology from its line of Power server chips -- includingÂ the top-shelf Power6Â -- IBM will achieve a 30 percent performance gain compared to chips using standard CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology, the company said Tuesday. And by building it on a scale of 45-nanometer feature sizes, IBM will achieve higher performance than comparable 65nm chips. IBM will launch this Cu-45HP (high performance) custom chip in early 2008, intended for manufacturers of switches and routers as well as cellphones and portable gaming systems. IBM will design a customized version of the ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) for each new client platform, said Bernard Meyerson, an IBM fellow and chief technology officer for IBM's Systems and Technology Group. The company already builds ASICs for the telephony market, but the new design will allow it to create more powerful designs in less time and at lower cost, he said. To boost power-efficiency, IBM is using 45-nm architecture embedded DRAM (dynamic RAM) instead of SRAM (static RAM) in the chip. Although DRAM has three to four times more memory density than SRAM, the company has never before used it for on-chip data storage because it is "pathetically slow," Meyerson said. IBM solved that problem with a recent advance that improves DRAM read/write data access speeds. Chips run faster and use less electricity when they use data stored on the processor itself instead of fetching that data from another location on the circuit board, he said. Once it launches the new chip, IBM expects to quickly reach full manufacturing capacity. Although the chip uses a new combination of technologies, IBM already builds processors with each of the components, such as the SOI-based processors it makes for gaming consoles including Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and Nintendo's Wii. Despite the new features, IBM is announcing the Cu-45HP at a challenging time in the global chip market. Worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $19.9 billion in April, showing a decline from March as average selling prices continued to drop, according to a report released Monday by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). From January through April, sales were down by nearly 2 percent from the same period of 2006, the report said. The revenue slump occurred because prices have sunk faster than a modest rise in demand for consumer electronics. That consumer demand has bolstered the number of unit shipments in the market, but chip makers are collecting less money because of tumbling prices for many types of chips, including microprocessors, DRAMs and NAND flash, according to the SIA. Also on Tuesday, IBM announced new digital and analog semiconductors for mobile handsets and other wireless products. They include the SiGe BiCMOS 5PAe, a silicon-germanium-based analog product for making efficient power amplifiers in cell phones and WiMAX applications, the SiGe BiCMOS 6WL, an entry-level version of the company's existing technology for high-volume consumer electronics including cell phones and GPS (global positioning system) devices, and the CMOS 11LP, a product design to improve power efficiency in handset design. IBM is selling the 6WL design kits now, and plans to launch the other two products later in 2007. Â
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New top-end Power5-based Unix server has commanding lead in performance test of servers running a large database.
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Certain ThinkPad power adapters pose a fire danger, company warns.
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Targeting Unix archrivals Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, IBM on Friday topped off the high end of its Power 5-based line of iSeries and pSeries servers, rolling out three systems all capable of hosting as many as 250 virtual servers on a single machine.
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While low-end Dellintel trumps IBM's 4.7GHz heater Pop quiz. You're in desperate need of making Java fly and have the coin to prove it. Do you shell out on IBM's new 4.7GHz Power6 eye candy or keep on replacing Unix kit with x86 systems?â¦
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International Business Machines Corp IBM.N on Sunday announced a new computer server using its Power5 microprocessor tuned for the popular Linux operating system, as the No.
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IBM is voluntarily recalling approximately 553,000 56 watt AC adapters made for use with notebook computers shipped worldwide between January 1999 and August 2000.
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The new IBM Power5 eServer i5 550 also features higher performance and new virtualization capabilities that allow it to run multiple operating systems at once on separate partitions.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM has improved the power efficiency of two models of PowerPC processors, making an effort to strengthen its position in markets from cars and printers to networking and communications equipment. The PowerPC 750CL and PowerPC 970GX are both single-core chips built with a 90-nanometer process. Both chips reduce DC electricity leakage with thicker gate oxides and reduce AC switching power with higher thresholds, the company said. IBM made the change to reach a wider range of enterprise and consumer applications, said Ron Martino, director of Power Architecture Solutions in IBM's Technology Collaboration Solutions unit. The company already has a strong grip on certain sectors. It makes the processors for all three of the top gaming consoles: Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and Nintendo's Wii. These improved chips could help it reach even further. The trend of power-efficient chips has already changed the notebook, desktop, and server markets. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) hasÂ cited power efficiencyÂ for the reason that its Opteron server processors have outsold chips from Intel in recent months, and Intel says its new Core 2 Duo chips will alsoÂ use power efficiencyÂ to win back that market share. IBM's 750 CL is a 32-bit chip running at 400MHz to 1GHz, and is intended for high-performance embedded applications, including consumer electronics, storage and imaging. The 970GX supports both 32-bit and 64-bit applications running from 1.2GHz to 2.5GHz, making it appropriate for applications in high-bandwidth data processing or algorithmic computation. IBM also announced a roadmap of future products to improve power draw. Its CPC965 will act as a companion chip to the PowerPC 970 series, providing more efficient I/O connectivity. Its 460S is a 32-bit, synthesizable core with variable cache sizes, and its 464FP H90 and 464H90 are application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that can be manufactured either by IBM or by its partners Chartered Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics. The 464H90 will launch by the end of 2006, while the other three cores ship in the first quarter of 2007. The PowerPC 750CL and PowerPC 970GX are available Tuesday.