Last week IBM posted a press release (subsequently pulled) that the PowerPC 970 would reach speeds between 1.8GHz and 2.5GHz. According to the release, it was implied that these speeds would be acheivable at a 0.13micron process.
This ZDNet article from Feb 28th, 2003 claims that speeds up to 2.5GHz will require the 0.09 process:
- IBM says a later PowerPC 970 will reach 2.5GHz using a 90-nanometre manufacturing process.
Information from this article, however, is suspect... as they also write:
- "Sources familiar with IBM and Apple's plans said that Apple will be a customer for the PowerPC 970 next year"
This exact quote was also used in this October 2002 article from ZDNet.
Per MacRumors sources, there have been conflicting rumors about the timing of the 970... but due to the unpredictable nature of product development, it's possible that the release date may simply not yet be decided.