Motorola and 'low-k' Tech

[MacRumors]

The Register notes that Motorola has successfully implemented 'low-k dielectric materials' in its current 0.18 micron SOI processors and plan on implementing it in tthe 0.13 micro process this month.

Reducing that cross-circuit interference with low-k dielectrics allows transistors to switch more quickly and draw less power. The trouble is, implementing low-k dielectrics has not proved easy - new materials require new methods, all of which must be thoroughly proved before they can be implemented in commercial products.

Motorola did not give specifics on particular processors, but was quoted as targeting steady improvements: "Our goal is to stay with a frequency doubling every 18 months or so, and get into the 2GHz range for PowerPC, but at very low power consumption of, say, 20W."

 

[Jimong5]

I would think that this would be perfect for the iBook, and would cause some competition between the G4 and G3 for that slot, and perhaps the eMac and the Box too. Such a CPU would be nice to round out a line with 970s, But the question is: Can Moto actually deliver the speed bump?

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Re: Motorola and 'low-k' Tech

Originally posted by Macrumors
"Our goal is to stay with a frequency doubling every 18 months or so, and get into the 2GHz range for PowerPC, but at very low power consumption of, say, 20W."

Nice, but you know, by the time they get there in a few years, who's going to want a 2GHz PowerPC? I was reading about this tech a while back and I imagine it will be used more and more by all the chip manufacturers - the low power issue is a huge thing. And if they can put that in a .09 process, well, they'd get some more benefit out of it.

D

 

[leo]

But who's gonna buy these 2 GHz 20 W Mot Chips in 2004? Apple won't. (And 20 W is pretty much for embedded applications, I think.)

 

[macgroove]

I agree!

won't it be too late for Motorola. Come on, 18 months... IBM will have started on the 980 by then already.

 

[Longey Nowze]

I submitted this I guess i was too late

anyway this sounds good, competition and stuff, 2GHz@ 20W is amazing if true, maybe Apple can bump the iBook to 2GHz? that would be nice!

anyway this news is good, I know it's a 970 but it's the next best thing for consumers... and maybe PowerBooks for the next 6-12 months... till the 970 gets cooler and uses less power.

THANK YOU
MaT

 

[hvfsl]

I doubt apple will get to 2Ghz until mid to late 2004, (if they use the PPC970) so they could use these G4s in the ibook or eMac. By that time Intel will be at or getting close to 4Ghz.

 

[delton05]

Pathetic

Who would buy them? The same people who currently buy the G4, Apple included...which is last century's cpu...4years old. You people sicken me! You're all so anti-Motorola despite singing the praise about the G4 all these years. I remember when you were anti-IBM, as well.

You're all so desparately hyped up about the 970 RUMOR, and that is all it is. You're all so desperate to get a new cpu, despite all the crap you've spewed forth about 'Speed not being important' and how the 'user' experience is what it's all about, I'm sure that if Apple eventually annouced a Mac with a Moto G5, you'd all suddenly switch back to singing praise about Moto. Fickle. You're like headless chickens, rudderless boats ... not sure where you're going.

I'll bet you're all getting ready to get excted about paying for a fifth OSX upgrade.

Pathetic...

 

[Hattig]

Who else reads this as getting to 2GHz in 18 months time?

Now, I would like it if it meant that they would have 2GHz in the near future (by the end of this year), and then get to 4GHz in the middle of 2005, and also be low-power.

However, with 2GHz 970's imminent, scaling to 2.4GHz+ and then higher on the next process, I don't see these new G4's being used in Apple products unless the price and power usage numbers are very good.

 

[rickag]

bottlenecks

Not being very technically savy, I'm not sure if I should comment, but what the heck.

If the current G4's, and some say previous genterations of G4's, choke on the current 167MHz front side bus, won't the alleged 2.0GHz be absolutely left gasping? I guess they could bump up the L3 cache to, um, well, er, maybe 1GB.

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I did say I'm not technically inclined.

 

[FriarTuck]

Re: Pathetic

Originally posted by delton05
Who would buy them? The same people who currently buy the G4, Apple included...which is last century's cpu...4years old. You people sicken me! You're all so anti-Motorola despite singing the praise about the G4 all these years. I remember when you were anti-IBM, as well.

You're all so desparately hyped up about the 970 RUMOR, and that is all it is. You're all so desperate to get a new cpu, despite all the crap you've spewed forth about 'Speed not being important' and how the 'user' experience is what it's all about, I'm sure that if Apple eventually annouced a Mac with a Moto G5, you'd all suddenly switch back to singing praise about Moto. Fickle. You're like headless chickens, rudderless boats ... not sure where you're going.

I'll bet you're all getting ready to get excted about paying for a fifth OSX upgrade.

Pathetic...

Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays.

Oh, it's Tuesday?

 

[mohaukachi]

2.0 ghz? 18 mo? motorola has got to be the worst thing that has happen to apple recently. by the time these chips come out they will be obsolete!

motorola is stupid, grasping at straws and not living up to its standards. . . . screw em! hellooooo ibm!!!

 

[ubergrid]

many != one

Who would buy them? The same people who currently buy the G4, Apple included...which is last century's cpu...4years old. You people sicken me! You're all so anti-Motorola despite singing the praise about the G4 all these years. I remember when you were anti-IBM, as well.

You're all so desparately hyped up about the 970 RUMOR, and that is all it is. You're all so desperate to get a new cpu, despite all the crap you've spewed forth about 'Speed not being important' and how the 'user' experience is what it's all about, I'm sure that if Apple eventually annouced a Mac with a Moto G5, you'd all suddenly switch back to singing praise about Moto. Fickle. You're like headless chickens, rudderless boats ... not sure where you're going.

I'll bet you're all getting ready to get excted about paying for a fifth OSX upgrade.

Pathetic...

I think it's really odd that some people interprate an entire community as a single schizophrenic person. I see it here and on Slashdot often, generalizing all the comments on a message-board as actually being the consensus of all who participate (leading the author to assume that everyone has conflicting opinions).

ubergrid

 

[yzedf]

Re: Pathetic

Originally posted by delton05
Who would buy them? The same people who currently buy the G4, Apple included...which is last century's cpu...4years old. You people sicken me! You're all so anti-Motorola despite singing the praise about the G4 all these years. I remember when you were anti-IBM, as well.

You're all so desparately hyped up about the 970 RUMOR, and that is all it is. You're all so desperate to get a new cpu, despite all the crap you've spewed forth about 'Speed not being important' and how the 'user' experience is what it's all about, I'm sure that if Apple eventually annouced a Mac with a Moto G5, you'd all suddenly switch back to singing praise about Moto. Fickle. You're like headless chickens, rudderless boats ... not sure where you're going.

I'll bet you're all getting ready to get excted about paying for a fifth OSX upgrade.

Pathetic...

This may be something you would appreciate:

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=66331&cid=6104343

/. discussion on the same article is here:

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/03/119252&tid=

 

[JtheLemur]

Easy Delton, you work for Motorola or something? =) Anyway, this sounds like a total patch - slap some paint on the existing kit to make it look better newer faster stronger. While low-k technology is interesting and a good thing to roll with, it's Motorola! their focus is the embedded market - it's been their focus for more than a year. Unless there's something we haven't see nin regards to these new-fangled processors, it would be silly to expect Motorola to be a viable alternative to IBM, who has actual product. That works now. You can hold it in your hand. I think it would be QUITE bad for Apple to sit back and see where Moto "goes with this".

But then again, look how LONG we've been waiting for them to ditch Moto. Hopefully they've run out of second chances.

 

[ssamani]

Originally posted by Hattig
Who else reads this as getting to 2GHz in 18 months time?

Not me. I read it as 2.84 Ghz in < 18 months time (a while since 1.42 Ghz came out) with 2 Ghz sometime before then.

That being said:

The trouble is, implementing low-k dielectrics has not proved easy - new materials require new methods, all of which must be thoroughly proved before they can be implemented in commercial products.

which I translate as meaning Moto have come up with a great idea in the labs but won't be able to translate to manufacturing given their past record of chip production.

 

[twil13]

Re: Re: Pathetic

Originally posted by FriarTuck
Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays.

Oh, it's Tuesday?

LOL

 

[vollspacken]

too little, too late...

vSpacken

 

[Sun Baked]

Delete -- Dont want to interrupt the rants with a quote from Motorola.

 

[Longey Nowze]

Re: Pathetic

Originally posted by delton05
I'll bet you're all getting ready to get excted about paying for a fifth OSX upgrade.

fifth? there was the beta, IIRC it was around $30, then there was the GM which was v10.0 cheetah that was $129 in march 2001, then in october of the same year there was v10.1 puma was it? it was free or $20 for shipping and handling, then augest 2002 jaguar was released with a lot of new features and improvments which was $129.

lets see:
1. cheetah $129
2. puma $20 or free.
3. jaguar $129
4. public beta, which people were advised not to buy $30 IIRC.

so most people only paid for two OS Xs? would like it better if were at OS 13 now? would you pay for OS 14? just cuz the number changed?

I don't see your point if you were not forced to buy the new OS were you? I just dont see they point when people start complaining about this, I will gladly pay for pather IF it had features i needed, if it only had features i wanted then I'll probably wait a bit, plus I'm in the market for a new mac, my Pismo has served me well for the last 4-5 years.

I really don't see your point, anyway you might just be in a bad mood or something, either way I'm sorry if i offended you in any way.

THANK YOU
MaT

 

[aharon]

Re: Pathetic

Originally posted by delton05
You're all so...

Nice.....crass generalization, that's what this forum REALLY needs. Go back to Spymac.

Besides, if everyone here makes you sick, why read it? Why not form your own disgruntled Mac site where you and all the other bad tempered people can wail and bemoan the downfall of Apple.

 

[Dave K]

Originally posted by leo
(And 20 W is pretty much for embedded applications, I think.)

20 W+- a bit is publicly considered to be roughly what Apple considers the upper limit for the 15" PowerBooks ...

 

[RHutch]

What about the lawsuit?

I'm pretty sure I remember reading about a (potential) lawsuit by Apple against Motorola for their failure to improve and produce chips for Apple. I don't know if it was this site or some other. Could this be an attempt by Moto to avoid that suit or other negative press? If it did go to court, they might still be able to say, "We were still working on improvements up to the very moment that Apple brought this suit."

 

[barkmonster]

Both the 7447 and 7457 are available from motorola right now.

Motorola's 7447 & 7457 Product Summary pages.

Offered in a 483-pin CBGA package, the MPC7457 processor is footprint-compatible with Motorola's award-winning MPC7455/45 processors, providing an easy migration path for OEMs seeking higher performance for their new or existing PowerPC processor-based applications. The MPC7457 can reach speeds of 1.3 GHz with a core voltage of 1.3V and includes 512KB of on-chip L2 cache (a 2X increase over the MPC7455's L2 cache), with support for up to 2MB of backside L3 cache. A lower-power version of the MPC7457 is available, operating at speeds of up to 1 GHz with a core voltage of 1.0V.

The MPC7457 is manufactured on Motorola's 0.13-micron HiPerMOS silicon-on-insulator (SOI) copper interconnect process technology, enabling it to deliver superior performance over bulk CMOS technology. In addition to increased performance, SOI technology offers excellent low power capability, making the devices ideal for embedded applications in the wired and wireless telecommunications, networking and imaging arenas.

It mentions in the pdf documentation for the MPC7457 that it supports upto 4Mb of SRAM but only 2Mb can be used as L3.

The MPC7457 supports up to 4 MB of SRAM, of which a maximum of 2 MB can be configured as cache memory;
the remaining 2 MB may be unused or configured as private memory.

bring on those MPC7457 upgrade cards!!!

I bet doubling the L2 makes quite a difference to the performance over the current 7455 cpus.

 

[illumin8]

How can this be negative?

Funny how there are more negative ratings on this news than positive.

How can any improvement in speed be a negative? As someone mentioned earlier, all of this 970 stuff is just a rumor, and it might not even happen for a couple of years... Wouldn't you rather be running a 2ghz. G4 next year rather than whatever you have right now?

How can any progress be negative? There are some (notice I said some, not all...) fscking morons on this board I tell you.

Also, think of it this way: Perhaps all of the 970 rumors have scared Motorola and they are thinking "we don't want to lose this market to IBM..." This might be just what they need to light a fire under their R&D department and get some decent chips out there. Having more than one vendor making PPC chips can only be a good thing. Look what the competition between AMD and Intel has done for PC speeds.