Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

IBM Opens Up POWER Architecture For Licensing

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • IBM Opens Up POWER Architecture For Licensing

    Phoronix: IBM Opens Up POWER Architecture For Licensing

    IBM is now following in the steps of ARM Holdings and has decided to allow for licensing of their CPU architecture. IBM and a group of other companies wanting a stake in IBM's POWER architecture have also founded the OpenPOWER Consortium group...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    This has so much potential. Looking forward to the new hw.

    Comment


    • #3
      very nice indeed, those IBM power system are performance monsters. i doubt those would be cheap enough to compete with intel tho

      Comment


      • #4
        About damn time. When Ubuntu dropped PowerPc, you know IBM had to do this.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Dukenukemx View Post
          About damn time. When Ubuntu dropped PowerPc, you know IBM had to do this.
          I think you overestimate Ubuntu's importance. My bet's on consoles made this happen. (I.e was the last straw.)

          Comment


          • #6
            They should have done this 10-20 years ago.
            Now it is too late with Intel having almost total dominance, and ARM growing and into the server market now too.

            By the way, didn't they already do this long time ago?
            Wasn't the Power Architecture already opened and licensable a long time ago? http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/newto/#2
            Wasn't the firmware already open source long time? Open Firmware, SmartFirmware, SLOF are all open source already.

            What do they really mean?
            I thought this was already done long time ago...

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by uid313 View Post
              They should have done this 10-20 years ago.
              Now it is too late with Intel having almost total dominance, and ARM growing and into the server market now too.

              By the way, didn't they already do this long time ago?
              Wasn't the Power Architecture already opened and licensable a long time ago? http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/newto/#2
              Wasn't the firmware already open source long time? Open Firmware, SmartFirmware, SLOF are all open source already.

              What do they really mean?
              I thought this was already done long time ago...
              The only company I remember making POWER derived chips was Motorola. I'd really love to see what modern Power chips can do at the consumer level, I know from personal experience just how much faster per clock PowerPC chips where compared to X86 and would love to see what the full enchilada versions can do.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by curaga View Post
                This has so much potential. Looking forward to the new hw.
                HW has potential when the end user can use it easily (hit power button and do stuff you want). I don't expect it to take over x86 as i don't expect ARM to do that for general computing. Unless of course there is a company that is willing to make this happen.

                Comment


                • #9
                  interesting decision. ARM are going to take quite a chunk of the server cpu market over the coming years, ibm won't be in the new gen of consoles except the wii u so ibm's sales of cpu's are going to wear away over time. I hope Nvidia makes their own desktop/laptop SoC using power+nvidia gpu and the rest that goes into a soc. They could sell chips for desktops and laptops running linux/chrome os for a fairly low price yet the performance will be great.

                  Does anyone know what the power comsumption levels are on modern ibm architectures? Could they create an apu with the power of an intel core i3 using say 35w? It is a shame windows doesn't support power architecture otherwise we could have a proper competitor to intel and amd.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by uid313 View Post
                    They should have done this 10-20 years ago.
                    Now it is too late with Intel having almost total dominance, and ARM growing and into the server market now too.

                    By the way, didn't they already do this long time ago?
                    Wasn't the Power Architecture already opened and licensable a long time ago? http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/newto/#2
                    Wasn't the firmware already open source long time? Open Firmware, SmartFirmware, SLOF are all open source already.

                    What do they really mean?
                    I thought this was already done long time ago...
                    The ISA has been open for license for years; you can get a license and then build your own processor from the ground up. What they're doing here is offering their designs for licensing, i.e. you can get their POWER8 design and use it to build your own silicon. I'm sure it won't be cheap.

                    Comment

                    Working...
                    X