[KLUG Advocacy] IBM PowerPC 670 -- WAS: Cringley's predictions for 2003

[Bryan J. Smith]

Quoting Bruce Smith <bruce@armintl.com>:
> It means I mis-read the original prediction.
> It says "Power 4 processor".  I read "Pentium 4 processor".
> Never mind!  :-/

Oh.  Well, there _had_ been a rumor about Apple going with AMD's x86-64
processor, because they supposedly licensed it from AMD.  I think that rumor was
not accurate, and a possible IT ignorance/confusion issue because Apple _has_
licensed HyperTransport, the system interconnect from AMD that many vendors use
(even on chipsets for Intel CPU).

Huge difference.

> OK, I get it now.  :-)

The name of the chip escapes me, but I _think_ it was the PowerPC 670.  Not sure
though.  Have to check the PC_Support archives.

It is a 64-bit Power4, runs at 1.8GHz (release) with faster versions planned,
and has some serious I/O.  It is the first Power4 that offers full 32-bit
PowerPC compatibility.

I just tried to draw some ASCII art of the flow, but it's rather confusing so I
didn't include it.

Just know the history of Macs:

         Original:  Motorola 680x0 32-bit CISC series
   Early PowerMac:  IBM PowerPC 60x 32-bit RISC products
  Latter PowerMac:  Motorola PowerPC 60x products
  Future PowerMac:  IBM PowerPC 670 64-bit RISC products

And the history of IBM RS/6000:
         Original:  IBM Power 32-bit ISA
    Early RS/6000:  IBM PowerPC 32-bit RISC products
   Latter RS/6000:  IBM Power4 64-bit RISC products
   Future RS/6000:  IBM Power4/PowerPC** 64-bit RISC products

The 32-bit PowerPC was designed to be both a new RISC architecture, as well as
support IBM's legacy 32-bit Power ISA.  It did not support the Motorola 680x0
32-bit CISC architecture, nor even the lesser-known (to Mac people) Motorola
880x0 RISC one either.

Early Macs shipped with IBM PowerPC chip, as did IBM RS/6000
workstations/servers.  This was _until_ the total design failure of the first
64-bit PowerPC 620.  At that time, IBM designed to drop 32-bit PowerPC
compatibility in its new 64-bit Power4 series, which only had 32-bit Power ISA
compatibility.  Apple then moved to use Motorola 32-bit PowerPC 603 and latter
products.

Now IBM is introducing a new Power4 chip, the PowerPC 670, that finally delivers
all three ISA compatibilities:  64-bit Power4, 32-bit Power and 32-bit PowerPC.

[ **NOTE:  It is unknown if RS/6000 systems will ship with the PowerPC 670, or
continue to ship with "pure" Power4 chips.  It might be both, dependending on
the products -- the former for workstations, the latter for servers. ]


-- 
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. (BSECE)       Contact Info:  http://thebs.org
[ http://thebs.org/files/resume/BryanJonSmith_certifications.pdf ]
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