IBM Strengthens Power Architecture With New Low-Power Processors

IBM Strengthens Power Architecture With New Low-Power Processors

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new, low-power additions to its Power Architecture line of microprocessors and new processor cores that address the growing demand for high-performance processors that conserve energy. In addition, the company expanded a university program designed to encourage development of broadband applications based on Power Architecture, which now accounts for a significant amount of all chip technology found in today’s automobiles, supercomputers, network and communications equipment, printers and gaming consoles.

“Innovation in microprocessors is no longer about simply raising the bar on speed,” said Ron Martino, director, Power Architecture Solutions, IBM Technology Collaboration Solutions. “IBM is committed to the development of high-performance, energy-efficient processors for a wide range of enterprise and consumer applications.” Two PowerPC processors now available

Specifically, IBM introduced two new off-the-shelf standard PowerPC single-core processors, both available immediately. The PowerPC 750CL, a 32-bit microprocessor, consumes half the energy as its predecessor, and performs at speeds ranging from 400MHz to 1GHz. The 750CL includes a 256KB L2 cache, and is targeted at networking, storage, imaging, consumer electronic and other high-performance embedded applications.

The PowerPC 970GX, a follow-on to the PowerPC 970FX, supports both 32-bit and 64-bit operations. It features the same power capabilities as its predecessor, but incorporates twice the integrated L2 cache at 1MB. The range of frequencies for the 970GX is 1.2 to 2.5GHz, enabling the chip to support high-bandwidth data processing and algorithmic intensive computations, making it suitable for communications, storage, multimedia and graphics based devices.

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