Although IBM Corp has got Rochester’s single-chip Apache (PowerPC 625) implementation of AS/400 PowerPC AS to take the 64-bit Unix strain if it really needs it, the Somerset design team will be in the doghouse if doesn’t come up with a credible PowerPC 620 by the third quarter of 1997, reports our sister publication, Unigram.X. For at that time, IBM has promised to wheel out its first 64-bit Unix system as a four- to eight-way Peripheral Component Interconnect affair dubbed Castor, supposedly doing some 13,000 tpm going to 12 ways in 1998. Apache inherently supports AS/400’s commercial load, not Unix’s compute-intensive requirements, and performance measures apparently show it. Alternatively IBM could go off and play with whatever Compagnie des Machines Bull SA manages to do with its 620-derived PegaKid. The two have extended their development agreement but IBM is not ready to follow up the Escalas with a commitment to Bull’s 64-bit system design, just yet. Plans for PowerPC 630, the merged PowerPC and Power 64-bit instruction part are on track, but observers believe that even then IBM will retain separate floating-point and integer streams for the part. The latest roadmap we’ve seen shows the 77MHz Power 2 evolving into the 135MHz Power2 Fast around year-end. The follow-on Power2 Super – due the same time as the 154MHz Apache, around the end of 1997 will, together with a 230MHz PowerPC 620 due at that time, be folded into a 200MHz PowerPC 630FP instruction set due 1998. Meantime the 4 .3 release of IBM’s AIX operating system will be a full 64-bit affair. It’s not likely to appear until mid-1997. There will be a couple of point upgrades before then, including a 4.2.5 release due in October.
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