IBM of late detailed new circuit design techniques that it says will double the clock speed of its forthcoming Power6 processors over the speed of its Power5 processors without dramatically increasing power requirements.
IBM’s upcoming Power6, which is multi-core and designed for higher-end servers running the Unix operating system, was crafted from the ground up to run fast without major losses in power efficiency, said Bernard Meyerson, chief technologist of IBM’s Systems and Technology Group.
The multi-core Power6, due next year, will run at speeds of more than 4 GHz, says Brad McCredie, chief engineer of Power6 for IBM. Power5 operates at clock speeds in the 1.9-GHz range. IBM says it took a ‘holistic’ approach in its techniques to improve speed while keeping power requirements down.
Change of Strategy:
For years, chip makers have improved computer performance by shrinking the size of transistors, squeezing more of them into smaller spaces and ratcheting up the speed at which they process instructions. But recently the benefits have diminished as the chips’ power requirements and temperatures have risen.
To get around the problem, the industry has resorted to building two or more computing engines known as "cores" on a single chip and throttling back the clock speed to prevent a silicon meltdown. As a result, performance does increase — but it does not double, even with two computing cores.
"In Power6, we basically combined everything we could “throw” at it in terms of fundamental atoms and molecules all the way out to what we knew would be the software that would run on top of that system," Meyerson said.
There are up to 8 layers in an average power chip, and IBM appears to have used just the right technology that gave them the fastest speed and least heat needed in each layer of the chip, says Richard Doherty, research director for The Envisioneering Group.
Power6 is expected to run between 4 and 5 gigahertz. Intel Corp.’s Itanium 2 server processor today tops out at 1.66 gigahertz. The Pentium 4 for desktops currently reaches speeds of 3.8 gigahertz.
IBM’s move to higher frequencies in its next-generation designs is a departure from the strategy of its competitor Sun Microsystems, which has focused on moving to multi-core processors and lower clock speeds as a way to keep power and heat in check.
Despite the speeds, it will have a lower power density than in some chips found in today’s desktops, Mr. Meyerson said.
IBM says Power6 will operate within a comparable ‘Power Envelope’ as competitive chips, but details on the architecture are still scant at this point.
Details of the chip, which is scheduled to be available next year, were being presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.