Power4 system design for high reliability

Abstract

The Power4 is an integrated system on a chip (SoC) designed for systems that will initially target enterprise Unix customers and, at a later date, O/S 400 customers. Power4 systems are servers comprised of several Power4 chips. To achieve reliability goals, Power4 system design incorporates fault tolerance throughout the hardware, firmware and operating system. Together, these system components provide concurrent and deferred maintenance, multi-level recovery from errors and run-time diagnostics.