IBM released new POWER6 microprocessor which is two times faster than the previous generation chip and uses same amount of power. It also has released a new computer serves based on the new chip.
Hewlett Packard Sun and Microsystems also have plans to improve energy efficiency, because it is now becoming a very important case for customers, as well as floor space.
POWER6 chip operates at 4.7 gigahertz and has 8 megabytes of on-chip memory, doubling server speed and workloads, using the same power for running and cooling. The new chip has also improved its bandwidth to 300 gigabytes per second, which allows users do download entire iTunes music catalogue of 5 million songs only in 60 seconds.
"Go back a few years, and the Power brand was an also-ran in the big iron chip race - in fact, it wasn't really clear how committed IBM was to its own chip development," said Gordon Haff, principal IT adviser for Illuminata. "But IBM decided to double down its bets on Power, and the results have been pretty impressive."
IBM has planned to spend $1 billion annual to increase energy efficiency of computer hardware under a program "Project Big Green". IDC analyst has estimated that "50 cents is spent on energy for every dollar of computer hardware. This is expected to increase by 54% to 71 cents over the next four years"Â.
The chip is designed for high-end servers running Unix operating system. IBM's new server technology is named System p. Windows and Linux are getting more and more popular, but there are major companies are running Unix on their data centers.
By Ruzan Harutyunyan for HULIQ
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