VOLUME 13, NUMBER 13
OCTOBER 6,1999
REPORT
Power4 Focuses on Memory Bandwidth
IBM Confronts IA-64, Says ISA Not Important
by Keith Diefendorff
Not content to wrap sheet metal around
Intel microprocessors for its future server
business, IBM is developing a processor it
hopes will fend off the IA-64 juggernaut. Speaking at this
week’s Microprocessor Forum, chief architect Jim Kahle de-scribed
IBM’s monster 170-million-transistor Power4 chip,
which boasts two 64-bit 1-GHz five-issue superscalar cores, a
triple-level cache hierarchy, a 10-GByte/s main-memory
interface, and a 45-GByte/s multiprocessor interface, as
Figure 1 shows. Kahle said that IBM will see first silicon on
Power4 in 1Q00, and systems will begin shipping in 2H01.
company has decided to make a last-gasp effort to retain
control of its high-end server silicon by throwing its consid-erable
financial and technical weight behind Power4.
After investing this much effort in Power4, if IBM fails
to deliver a server processor with compelling advantages
over the best IA-64 processors, it will be left with little alter-native
but to capitulate. If Power4 fails, it will also be a clear
indication to Sun, Compaq, and others that are bucking
IA-64, that the days of proprietary CPUs are numbered. But
IBM intends to resist mightily, and, based on what the com-pany
has disclosed about Power4 so far, it may just succeed. |
