IBM, Motorola, Apple open PowerPC RISC unit

Electronic News, May 11, 1992 by Stuart Zipper

AUSTIN, TEX. -- IBM and Motorola, with Apple in a supporting role, have opened a development center dedicated to bringing the Power-PC RISC MPU family to market by the end of this year.

The new center, which elevates the visibility of the PowerPC alliance, will house a 300-man semiconductor development team staffed almost equally by IBM and Motorola personnel, about half of whom are already on the job, with a dozen support personnel from Apple. Another 100 people are assigned to the project at nearby Motorola facilities.

Immediate goal of the design team is to modify the IBM RS6000/220 CPU, overlaying it with the bus structure of the Motorola 88110 RISC CPU now in beta test, to meet the emerging specifications of the Power computing environment. Executives of IBM and Motorola said that the initial Power PC circuit, designated the Power-PC/601, is now scheduled to begin rolling off the line at Motorola's MOS11 front-end here by the end of the year, with products using the microprocessor reaching market early next year.

Future PowerPC circuits are to be ground-up designs, the alliance members said. Scheduled for 1993 introduction are three such circuits, including the PowerPC/604 which will eventually replace the 601. Also in design are the 620, aimed at workstation and server applications, and the 603, aimed at low-end uses including desktop and laptop computers. The 603 is also to be released in cell form for applications such as controller use, the group revealed last week.

Joining Motorola, IBM, and Apple in the formal grand opening of the design center were the first two two announced outside customers for PowerPC circuits, Bull and Thomson-CSF.

The PowerPC trio, though, carefully avoided any indication that a consortium or OEM customer's group is being formed yet.

"We're not rushing to market with a new association or a new Sparc International," said William J. Filip, president of IBM's Advanced Workstation division.

"There was a kind of runaway contest to see who could come up with a piece of paper with the largest list of names and call that a consortium," James Norling, president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector.

Mr. Norling also said that, for the immediate future, IBM and Motorola are not inviting any other semiconductor manufacturers into the PowerPC world.

"We do have provisions for a second (merchant market) silicon source. At an appropriate time there will be one," he said.

Initial plans call for IBM to manufacture circuits for its internal use only, plus purchase some quantity from Motorola, with Motorola providing all merchant market parts.