Author: John Sidles
Date: 06:39:30 11/16/01
Just thought you chess programmers might want to take another look at supporting
MacOS. Here's the latest rumors from:
http://www.macosrumors.com/
******* rumors follow ********
At Apple, we are quite pleased with the way the G5 has progressed. As of noon,
we received version 0.7 of the G5. Altivec performance is now at par with
equivalent clock speed 7460's. We spent a late night Friday night fitting
prototypes with the new revision, and spent the day Saturday doing various
tests.
Yields are now just at the commercially acceptable level. Good news is that
clock speeds have been improved to the point where 1.6 Ghz chips will be in
adequate quantities. Another clock speed record was also set: 1 chip tested at
2.8 Ghz, 2 tested at 2.6 Ghz, 13 tested at 2.4 Ghz, 13 tested at 2.2Ghz, and 54
tested at 2Ghz. This shows that the G5 has tremendous potential at reaching high
frequencies, being this early in its life. This is in sharp contrast to Intel's
Itanium, which when I spoke to an Intel engineer at the semiconductor forum,
they still are not getting sufficient yields above 800Mhz, an yields on current
processors are very, very poor, hence the steep price of the Itanium. Mckinley
is not faring too well either, progress has not been very good on increasing its
clock speed for release sometime next year. The aim is to speed bump the G5 to
between 2Ghz and 2.4 Ghz for Macworld New York. Above 1.6 Ghz, the G5 will be
produced in 400Mhz increments.
Apple could theoretically sign off now, but Jon Rubinstein wants to go through
one more revision. All the critical bugs have now been worked out, but there are
a couple of minor optimizations that will go into revision 0.8, which is due
within two weeks. Likely, these slight optimizations will result in version 0.8
being declared 1.0, and mass production will go on throughout December to get a
critical volume of chips for a Mid-December production run of Power Mac G5's.
Anyone considering buying a G5 better be forwarned: the chip price may mean that
Apple may not be able to offer G5 Power Macs for the same price as current G4
models. There has been talk between Steve Jobs, Jon Rubinstein, and Phil
Schiller about possibly offering 7460 G4's at the low end in the professional
models in two configurations, which would also appease Motorola. Apple would
have five models of pro desktops until G5 prices fall low enough to warrant
having them in the low-end pro models. There is talk of two 7460 G4 models, and
3 G5 models. Talk is that the low end G5 model will sell for slightly more than
the current 867Mhz G4. The G5 towers will also sport the quicksilver enclosure
initially, which will be changed at Macworld New York. People should understand
that even though the G5 is considerably more expensive than the G4, it is a
steal considering that we are getting at least 60% overall instructions per
cycle than Intel's Itanium, and that it is a 64-bit processor. The 32 bit
version of the G5 will be solely targeted towards embedded applications, as
32-bit addressing is no longer adequate for desktop applications.
The long awaited LCD iMac will also make its debut at Macworld San Francisco. It
will be available at up to 1Ghz, 900Mhz being the scenario should yields of
IBM's next generation G3's not be sufficient enough at 1Ghz.
Steve Jobs has very ambitious plans for Apple's processor strategy. He recently
said "We've been stuck with the G4 for over two years, that's too long". His
intentions are that the G5 have a life of 18 months in the Pro models. He wants
the G6 to hit initial silicon between next December, and February 2003, and
release it in mid-2003. Initially, the G6 will be fabbed with a 0.1 micron
process moving to .07(.065) micron. It will be built upon the HIP 8.0 process,
which is still not quite finalized. It will feature Altivec II, which promises
to at least double performance of the current Altivec. Early estimates are that
it will contain over 100 million gates. The G6 will be introduced at between 4.5
and 5Ghz and scale up to 10 Ghz.
This week Apple has committed itself to going beyond the G6 to build a G7, and
maybe beyond. Apple is looking at Motorola's recently announced Gallium Arsenide
technology to give this chip insanely high clock speeds. Talk is the G7 could go
as high as 20 Ghz. The G7 would debut in early to mid 2005. This renewed hope
with the PowerPc architecture is in light of the fact that Cisco Systems has
committed to being a significant customer of G5's for their high-end routers,
and Silicon Graphics being in the last stages of abandoning development on its
R16000 and R18000 processors as a cost-cutting measure. It looks very likely it
will sign a commitment with Apple, IBM and Motorola within a month. It has
prototype G5 chips in a prototype workstation of theirs, and is hard at work
developing Irix 7.0 for the G5.
In terms of future G5 development, work is well underway on the 8510, which is a
low-power SOI LoK dielectric version of the G5. It is due out in late Q4 2002,
and it will be an IBM product fabbed with its 0.1 micron process. Work is also
progressing on the 8550, which is due out Q1 2003. It will be a 0.1 micron chip
built upon SOI LO-K dielectric. It is a candidate to receive Altivec II if it is
completed in time.
Relationships between Apple and Motorola as of late could very well be described
as Jeckyll and Hyde. Just three weeks ago, Steve Jobs said "I am going to sue
the ass of those guys at Motorola. At the last minute, they f*cked us up. They
told us we would have 1Ghz G4's, and days before Macworld, the f*ckers told us
there was a defect which would cause them to fail above 900Mhz." Days later, the
relationship becomes cordial again when Motorola shows renewed interest when SGI
and Cisco Systems start looking into the G5.
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