Power Architecture in the news

IBM®, Chartered, and Samsung extend common design enablement platform for 65-nanometer base
IBM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced that they are jointly developing design kits for the 65-nanometer (nm) base and low-power processes. Read more.

• The announcement comes on the heels of news that Samsung Electronics Ltd. has licensed the 90nm common design enablement technology IBM and Chartered use.

The games PowerPCs® play:
The end of May was all a-buzz with game console announcements, especially for those boxes employing PowerPC processors. Ars Technica has a nice e3 roundup; as well, a dedicated write-up on each of the three new consoles: the XBox (also here); the Nintendo Revolution, and the Sony PlayStation 3.

• IBM Scores Hat Trick with New Gaming Consoles gives good background to the story.
• Electronic News has more on the IBM gaming strategy.
• IBM plant will make game chip.
• IBM PowerPC leads chip industry.
• For more discussion of the individual consoles, see the Slashdot discussions of the XBox, the Revolution, and the PlayStation3 announcements.
• IBM recently held its first Game industry Webcast, which you can now view as a replay. Watch the On Demand Games events page for details on available papers and broadcasts.

IBM will unlock door to Cell
IBM, Toshiba, and Sony are preparing to release full chip specifications and software libraries in an effort to rally the open source community around the device that powers the Sony PlayStation 3. IBM also intends to help others to create custom design versions of the Cell. Quoting IBM Cell team lead Jim Kahle, "Our intention is to open up the Cell software architecture. The idea is to get the industry to help us evolve the basic software layers." The Cell architecture specification includes details for more than 200 new instructions used in the specialized cores inside the Cell processor; look for software libraries in the Fall of 2005 -- according to Kahle, "We're not yet sure about the right licensing terms for the libraries. It can be hard to give stuff away for free." Read More from the EE Times. Ars Technica's Hannibal is skeptical.

For even more news on Cell:

• CELL: A New Platform for Digital Entertainment details programming models for Cell.
• IBM Discloses Cell Based Blade Server Board Prototype has pictures: "The two large packages on the left are the Cell processors."
• The Cell-based workstation is to premier at LinuxTag 2005 later this month.

Apple switches to x86
At its Worldwide Developer Conference this week, Apple announced plans to transition all of its Macintosh computers to Intel® microprocessors by the end of 2007. For more, see the Apple press release.

See also:

• Coverage from the New York Times; Free registration required.
• At the time of this writing, the Discussion of the announcement on Slashdot had generated upwards of 2800 comments.

More Power news

• IBM inks $200m deal for 45nm chip development (Computer Business Review, May 2005)
• Eight-core processor on tap (Information Week, May 2005)
• Mighty morphing Power processors (BusinessWeek Online, June 2005)
• Terra Soft launches IBM 970FX Eval BSP (NewsForge, May 2005)
• PowerPC ATCA blade gains Carrier Grade Linux support (LinuxDevices.com, June 2005)
• POWER5 Servers And DB2 UDB Set A New World Record In Performance (PhysOrg.com, June 2005)
• Why 64-bit Linux is better than 64-bit Windows (eWeek.com, May 2005)
• Freescale Ramps Production of 90nm Programmable Multi-Core DSP (Electronic Business Online, May 2005)
• AMCC Delivers on Security-Enabled Processors (Electronic News, May 2005)

Back to top

Upcoming Power-related events

64-bit Linux: An introduction to Linux™ on POWER™ workshops
May-June, various dates and locations
This two-day workshop will help you understand the Power Architecture™ and hardware and how to install and exploit 64-bit Linux for iSeries™, pSeries®, and OpenPower™ systems, as well as provide the basic skills of porting to 64-bit Linux. For more information.

Power.org in Barcelona
June 8-9, Barcelona, Spain
Power.org Barcelona is suited for academic, government and industrial leaders, technologists, and researchers who want to leverage the capabilities, openness, and flexibility of Power Architecture to develop and provide solutions that tackle complex scientific, engineering, industrial, and e-business problems. For more information. Read the press release.

42nd DAC, 2005 Design Automation Conference
June 13-17, Anaheim, California, USA
Join us for a Power lunch at this year's Design Automation Conference; IBM will also be hosting a number of special programs at our booth. See the events page for more information. See you in Anaheim!

The 3rd International IEEE Northeast Workshop on Circuits & Systems
June 19-22, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
This workshop is geared toward advanced research in microelectronics covering computer and system architectures including RF, digital, analog and mixed-signal circuits design, test and verification, and system-level design, for applications such as telecommunications and biomedical. For more information.

EDA Tech Forum 2005
June 21 and 23, Wantage, UK, and Paris, France
The EDA Tech Forum offers attendees the opportunity to learn about the latest technology trends and challenges facing the EDA Design community. For more information.

The 2005 International Conference on Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms
June 27-30, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
The conference will include paper presentation sessions and keynote talks on the topic. For more information.

Advanced Reticle Symposium
June 28, San Jose, California, USA
This is a one-day event that is the world's only forum dedicated to the discussion of the "tech-onomics" of advanced photomasks. For more information.

8th Embedded Systems Expo and Conference
June 29-July 1, Tokyo, Japan
This show is billed as "everything required for embedded systems" -- from software, hardware, and components to systems integration and development platforms. For more information.

Semicon West 2005
July 11-15, San Francisco
This conference offers a wide range of programs for 2005, from exciting keynotes speakers to the latest in Emerging Technologies. For more information.

MPSoC'05
July 11-15, Relais de Margaux, France
MPSOC is a pluridisciplinary forum bringing together professionals from IP, fabless, semiconductor, system houses, and design industry to build a vision of the next step in integrated system design. More than 50 world class R&D speakers will discuss fundamental and strategic issues to master multi-processor SoC design. For more information.

Coming soon:

• Networking Solutions/Secure World Technical Conferences, July 18-22, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• IEEE 16th International Conference on Application-specific Systems, Architectures and Processors, July 23-25, Samos, Greece
• Advanced A/D and D/A Conversion Techniques and their Applications, July 25-27, Limerick, Ireland
• IBM Storage and Storage Networking Symposium, July 25-29, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Resources

• Upcoming IBM events are found in more than one place on the greater IBM site: For processor-related events, see IBM Microelectronics on the road. Visit the Power Architecture zone events page for happenings of interest to the Power Architecture community. IBM Global Services conferences and events offer opportunities to participate in IBM technology learning seminars and conference around the world. The majority of IBM Redbooks workshops are also open to the public.
  
  
• For Webcasts, try TechOnline, "Delivering e-Learning Solutions and Resources to the Electronics Community."
  
  
• Return to the front page of the Power Architecture Community Newsletter 8 June 2005 or view the current issue of the Power Architecture Community Newsletter
  
  
• Subscribe to the Power Architecture Community Newsletter.
  
  

About the author

Comments (Undergoing maintenance)

Back to top

Trademarks  |  My developerWorks terms and conditions

Table of contents

• Power Architecture in the news
• Upcoming Power-related events
• Resources
• About the author
• Comments

Local resources

• IBM Innovation Center - Austin, TX
• IBM Innovation Center - Chicago, IL
• IBM Innovation Center - Dallas, TX
• IBM Innovation Center - San Mateo, CA
• IBM Innovation Center - Waltham, MA
• Technical Briefings in North America

My developerWorks community

Dig deeper into Multicore acceleration on developerWorks

Special offers