POWER2

The MCM of a POWER2 processor

The IBM POWER2 (originally named RIOS2) microprocessor was released in 1993 as the successor of the POWER1. The POWER2 ran from 55 to 71.5 MHz and improved on the POWER1 design by featuring an extra fixed point unit and floating point unit, increased cache sizes and new instructions. The POWER2, like the POWER1 was a multichip design, requiring eight dies with a total transistor count of 23 million transistors and a total die area of 1,215 mm² manufactured in a 0.72 µm five layer metal process and was packaged in a ceramic multi-chip module. IBM claimed that the performance for a 62.5 MHz POWER2 was 73.3 SPECint92 and 134.6 SPECfp92.

P2SC

The P2SC (POWER2 Super Chip) was released in 1996 as the successor of the POWER2. A single chip implementation of the POWER2's eight chip design, the P2SC contained 15 million transistors on a 335 mm² die manufactured in IBM's 0.29 µm five-layer metal CMOS-6S process and ran at 135 MHz, nearly twice as fast as the POWER2 at 71.5 MHz, with the memory and I/O buses running at half speed to support the higher clock frequency. The P2SC was not a complete copy of the POWER2, the L1 data cache and Data TLB capacities were halved to 128 KB and 256 entries respectively and a rarely used feature that locked entries in the TLB was not implemented in order to fit the original design onto a single die. IBM claimed that the P2SC's performance was 5.5 SPECint95_base and 14.5 SPECfp95_base. In 1998, the P2SC was succeeded by the POWER3 as IBM's flagship microprocessor on the RS/6000 line.

The P2SC was the microprocessor that powered the 30-node IBM Deep Blue supercomputer that beat world champion Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997.

See also

• Power Architecture
• IBM POWER

References

• POWER2: Next Generation of the RS/6000 Family. IBM.
• POWER2 instruction cache unit
• POWER2 floating-point unit: Architecture and implementation
• POWER2 fixed-point, data cache, and storage control units
• "IBM Regains Performance Lead with Power2". (4 October 1993). Microprocessor Report.
• Gwennap, Linley (26 August 1996). "IBM Crams POWER2 onto Single Chip". Microprocessor Report.
• Statt, Paul (January 1994). "Power2 Takes the Lead--For Now". Byte.
• IBM readies RISC Progeny in Unix push, BNET.com, 1993