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Future of the PPC? (970, 980, 990, 9900)

Sunday July 6, 2003 1:08 am PDT by Arnold Kim
The following information is from an unconfirmed and anonymous source. As such, authenticity is always uncertain, but due to the content of the piece, was felt to be of sufficient interest for publishing. Of interest, MacBidouille has posted similar (but fewer) details in their unconfirmed rumors of the PPC's timeline. This information below may represent corroboration -- or simply a common source. Take, as with all rumors, with an appropriate amount of skepticism.


Apple and IBM have been working on parallel development of the Power5 and PPC 980. The PPC 980 is a single core version of the Power 5. While prototype forms of this chip exist, it is almost a year away from shipping in Macs.



Improvements in the PPC 980 include Hyperthreading, eLiza error correction, and more massive parallelism. IBM's implementation of hyperthreading provides a 30% gain over Intel's. eLiza technology will reduce the bottlenecks when the branch prediction unit fails. Altivec will split into 3 pipelines (vs 2 in the 970), 4 Integer and 4 Floating point units. 980 will have to be built on a 90nm processor due to heat dissipation requirements.



Steve's comment of 3GHz in 1 year will not be accomplished with the G5 (970) - which will top out at 2.6-2.8GHz. The PPC 980 will start at speeds of 2.6-3GHz and top out around 4.5-5GHz. The G5 will make its way into PowerBook lines in Jan/Feb, Xserve's later this year, and iMacs in approximately one year.



Marklar's project size has decreased, but remains ongoing. There are four generations of the PowerPC including and beyond the 970 that are in development and planning. Besides the 980 chips (targetted at end of 2004), there are plans for 990 chips on a 65nm process in 2005/2006 @ 6GHz and scaling up to near 10GHz. Beyond this, the PPC 9900 starting on a 45nm process is targetted in 2007/2008 starting at 9-10GHz and reaching up to 20-25GHz by 2010-2011.

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arn
112 months ago
This could be true... it could be made up. I don't know. But is an interesting read... so enjoy.

I guess it's something to keep in mind as more details surface over the next year.

arn
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k2k koos
112 months ago
it's good to see they are not resting on their b*tts, but keepp on developing products for the future, to stay current, and perhaps even widening the performance gap...
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evil
112 months ago
20-25 ghz
hot damn
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QCassidy352
112 months ago
good lord, makes me not even want a g5 anymore! ;) I hope it's all true. That sounds great.

One question though- can someone explain "power 4" and "power 5" as compared to 970 and 980? The 970 is a power 4 derivative, while the 980 is a single core power 5? Is the G4 also a power 4 derivative? Is the 990 also a power 5 derivative? Thanks for the help.
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ZildjianKX
112 months ago
Well, some interesting PB news. It would really suck for the towers to go to the PPC 980 chip and the PBs to still be G4s... I guess I'll have to hold out on the PBs for another 6 months... I think it will be worth it in the long run, maybe a new ipod by then anyways... not to mention preloaded with Panther.
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Ja Di ksw
112 months ago
Not to be rude, but what does someone need 25 Ghz for? Honestly, that is just insane, especially if they are dual processors. I know people making music or animation or whatever would like them, but for your average Joe, do we really need that much? I guess that's what the iMac's and the like are for, though by then they will have 10 or 20 Ghz or whatever.

Remember this? :)

"640K ought to be enough for anybody"
- Satan, um, I mean, Bill Gates.
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Kermit
112 months ago
I'm no fan of either Bill Gates nor Microsoft but that "640 kb is good enough for everyone"-quote is false. Bill Gates never made such a remark and it is time that we lay that myth to rest.
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macdop
112 months ago
I am no expert on chips etc., but a 45nm sounds a little imposable, as I believe that would mean like 3-4 atom gates, which I believe is imposable even with UV fabrication technologies, and would also cause random electron jumps from gate to gate hence making transistors imposable, as I said, I am no expert, and I could very well be wrong, and I have just come back from a bar, and am very drunk, but I think simple physics makes this impossible
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GregAussie
112 months ago

Originally posted by Ja Di ksw
Not to be rude, but what does someone need 25 Ghz for?

Remember this? :)
"640K ought to be enough for anybody"
- Satan, um, I mean, Bill Gates.

Ah, 10 years from now, a friend walks in and says "nice garden out your window" - you say "no, actually that's my 3d Mac interface, with garden themes - pull out that carrot and watch what happens".

Or maybe they'll use the 25Ghz for a complex AI which only weeds out Spam and ads.
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Veldek
112 months ago
I'm quite sure that I read some days ago, that IBM has a 970 working at 3.2GHz dissipating 82W, which is as much as the Intel chips at the same frequency. So it doesn't seem impossible for them to reach the 3Ghz barrier with a 970.

Anyway, as IBM is working on the Power5 (the 980 will be a derivative of it, the G4 has nothing to do with either of them) and on the Power5+, I think we may expect a lot in the near future.
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