Design of the Power6 Microprocessor

Abstract

The POWER6trade microprocessor combines ultra-high frequency operation, aggressive power reduction, a highly scalable memory subsystem, and mainframe-like reliability, availability, and serviceability. The 341mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> 700M transistor dual-core microprocessor is fabricated in a 65nm SOI process with 10 levels of low-k copper interconnect. It operates at clock frequencies over 5GHz in high-performance applications, and consumes under 100W in power-sensitive applications.