Jack DiLullo

Design of the Power6 Microprocessor

The POWER6trade microprocessor combines ultra-high frequency operation, aggressive power reduction, a highly scalable memory subsystem, and mainframe-like reliability, availability, and serviceability. The 341mm2 700M transistor dual-core microprocessor is fabricated in a 65nm SOI process with 10 levels of low-k copper interconnect. It operates at clock frequencies over 5GHz in high-performance applications, and consumes under 100W in power-sensitive applications.

IBM POWER6 microprocessor physical design and design methodology

The IBM POWER6™ microprocessor is a 790 million-transistor chip that runs at a clock frequency of greater than 4 GHz. The complexity and size of the POWER6 microprocessor, together with its high operating frequency, present a number of significant challenges. This paper describes the physical design and design methodology of the POWER6 processor. Emphasis is placed on aspects of the design methodology, technology, clock distribution, integration, chip analysis, power and performance, random logic macro (RLM), and design data management processes that enabled the design to be completed and the project goals to be met.

Design methodology for the IBM POWER7 microprocessor

The IBM POWER7® microprocessor, which is the next-generation IBM POWER® processor, leverages IBMs 45-nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process with embedded dynamic random access memory to achieve industry-leading performance. To deliver this complex 567-mm2 die, the IBM design team made significant innovations in chip design methodology. This paper describes the most critical methodology innovations specific to POWER7 design, which were in modularity, timing closure, and design efficiency.

Design and implementation of the POWER5/spl trade/ microprocessor

POWER5/sup TM/ is the next generation of IBMs POWER microprocessors. This design, sets a new standard of server performance by incorporating simultaneous multithreading (SMT), an enhanced distributed switch and memory subsystem supporting 164w SMP, and extensive RAS support. First pass hardware using IBMs 130nm silicon-on-insulator technology operates above 1.5GHz at 1.3V. POWER5s dual-threaded SMT creates up to two virtual processors per core, improving execution unit utilization and masking memory latency. Although a simplistic SMT implementation promised /spl sim/20% performance improvement, resizing critical microarchitectural resources almost doubles in many cases the SMT performance benefit at a 24% area. Implementing these microarchitectural enhancements posed challenges in meeting the chips frequency, area, power, and thermal targets.