Triple advantage
The process is being put immediately to work in volume 90nm production at IBM’s 300mm manufacturing facility. The company's 64bit PowerPC 970FX microprocessor will be the first chip built on the combination of technologies. Apple has announced that it will use the PowerPC 970FX in its Xserve G5 1U rack-mount server.
Early PowerPC 970FX chips produced with the new technology deliver significant power savings, while performing at an equal or higher clock speed than comparable processors. The company expects to realise even greater gains in processor efficiency as it ramps production of the new process.
The technology speeds the flow of electrons through transistors to increase performance and provides an insulating layer in the silicon that isolates transistors to decrease power losses.
