IBM Aims to Fix Chip Issues with Power6

IBM's upcoming Power6 line will aim to address some of the problems of its predecessor, while running at speeds well above that of today's processors. The Power5 line, also known as the G5 chip included in Apple's iMac and PowerMac desktops, has suffered from power and heat dissipation issues.

These issues were enough for Apple to drop IBM's Power architecture in favor of cooler and more power efficient Intel chips at last years Worldwide Developer Conference. Since then, the iMac and Apple's high-end laptop, the MacBook Pro, have made the transition, with the rest of the line expected to be all Intel by year's end.

The new processor would also reverse a recent trend in the industry of adding additional cores yet decreasing the clock speed on each core in order to reduce power consumption and heat, yet attain a performance boost.

Due to this, "dual-core" does not necessarily equate to "double the speed."

Power6 will be a multi-core chip and is a fundamental redesign from the ground up over previous Power processors, according to IBM. The chip will be designed to run in high-end UNIX servers. A Power6 chip would run in the 4 to 5 gigahertz range.

IBM says that even at such a high speed, it would use less power than even some desktop chips. The company hopes to have the chip on the market by the beginning of next year.