Next-Gen PowerPC
TechWorld has just posted an interview with IBM's Chief Scientist and PowerPC inventor Frank Soltis. Amongst the field of solid questions, there were a few which drove towards understanding what direction IBM would be taking for the next generation PowerPC CPU. As you might have guessed, the next PowerPC will have more in common with the CELL architecture they helped create than with more conventional x86 processors from AMD and Intel.
Cell is an awesome chip. Its performance is most impressive. The design uses a single main processor and eight co-processors on a single chip. Although we will not see the current Cell chips used in our commercial servers, the design approach used in for Cell chip will play a big part in our future Power processor designs. Stay tuned.
