Details of IBM's new PowerPC chip to be released in late 2003 are trickling in. The official Press Release is found at IBM's site, and provides little additional information on the upcoming processor.
Mr.Hey provides this article from Silicon Strategies which provides more detailed information on the 32-bit/64-bit implementation of the processor:
IBM's approach to implementing a 32/64-bit architecture appears straightforward. The 970 supports full 64-bit registers and addressing. When a flag bit is sent it triggers a 32-bit mode in which the high-order words on an arithmetic logic unit and on memory addresses are ignored. In either 64- or 32-bit mode, the processor issues up to eight instructions per clock cycle.
According to the article, 32-bit PowerPC OS's simply need to support new data structures and interrupt handlers, but 32-bit PowerPC apps would run unchanged.
The Register provides details from the Microprocessor Forum conference... and reports projections of SPECint2000 and SPECfp2000 scores of 937 and 1051 respectively at the 1.8GHz speed. According to this chart the 2.8GHz Pentium 4 currently has SPECint2000 and SPECfp2000 scores of 970 and 938 respectively.
Some sites are reporting that Apple will be using the new chips... but no official word is yet available.
Thursday September 21, 2023 10:28 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 17.0.1 and iPadOS 17.0.1 updates for the iPhone and the iPad, adding bug fixes to the new software. The iOS 17.0.1 and iPadOS 17.0.1 updates come just a few days after Apple launched iOS 17 and iPadOS 17. The software, which is build 21A340, can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. There is a...
Tuesday September 19, 2023 2:04 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
All of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models feature a new battery health setting that prevents the devices from charging beyond 80% at all times when enabled, as confirmed by The Verge's Allison Johnson during a Q&A session today. The new setting is separate from the pre-existing Optimized Battery Charging feature on iPhones, which intelligently delays charging past 80% until a more...
Tuesday September 19, 2023 12:43 pm PDT by Juli Clover
As Apple was announcing new iPhone models last week, the Unicode Consortium was officially approving new emoji characters that are set to be added to smartphones starting in 2024. Mockup of new emoji from Emojipedia Approved Unicode 15.1 emoji include phoenix, lime, an edible mushroom, shaking head vertically (as in a "yes" nod), shaking head horizontally (a "no" head shake), and broken...
Wednesday September 20, 2023 9:52 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
In an interview with Numerama's Nicolas Lellouche, Apple's VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack explained why the iPhone 15 Pro Max's tetraprism lens system is limited to 5x optical zoom, instead of 10x like on Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra. The interview is in French, so quotes below are computer translated. Apple says the Telephoto lens on the iPhone 15 Pro Max features the...