Apple Computer Inc’s official acknowledgement of the existence of the PowerPC 603+ existence has freed the other PowerPC alliance partners to talk about it openly for the first time. Motorola Inc said that the new chip would be an alliance part, that is, built and sold by both IBM Corp and Motorola. Moreover, it will be generally available on the market, unlike, for example, the 110MHz 601, which, as previously reported, was specially produced, just for Apple. Motorola describes the 603+ as part of the general road-map, which shows the 603, 604 and 620 evolving, but it said the announcement of the new processor will be a much lower-key affair than its predecessors. The exact capabilities of the part will not be set out until it becomes availabl e, rather than being revealed at any first silicon announcement. Probable directions for the 603 include reduced die-size and increased clock-speed versions. But Motorola would not say whether these would be included in the 603+ set for the summer; all we can be sure of is that it will include the bigger cache.
