IBM announces enhancements to PowerPC portfolio, new Power licensee

U.S. Government Trusted Access Program licenses IBM's PowerPC 405 and 440 processor cores

Monterey, CA -- February 28, 2006 -- At a gathering of international electronics journalists known as the Global Press Forum, IBM today announced the availability of a 90 nanometer, 440 Power Core Floating Point Unit (FPU). The 440 FPU is designed to provide high performance and low power consumption for embedded applications such as image generation for printing and medical imaging, pattern matching for data mining and risk analysis for financial services.

"There is a significant demand for floating point performance in today's printing, imaging and data mining applications," said Ron Martino, director, PowerPC Products. "IBM will continue to introduce enhancements to the Power Architecture that allow our clients to deliver innovative, game changing products to their customers."

In addition, IBM is announcing availability of the Certified Design Kit (CDK) for IBM's hard core version of the PowerPC® 440 processor in 90nm copper process technology.  This CDK will enable clients to ensure that all specifications of a particular microprocessor design have been verified and certified on actual hardware.

IBM announces that the U.S. Government's Trusted Access Program Office has licensed the fully synthesizable versions of IBM's PowerPC 405 and 440 processors.  IBM licenses the Power Architecture™ to customers worldwide with the goal of establishing a more open, modular and pervasive architecture for use in performance driven, low power solutions. 

The Government's Trusted Access Program Office selected the PowerPC 405 and 440 synthesizable cores because they offer the versatility and unique combination of low power and high performance needed across a wide range of applications.

The 440 Power Core Floating Point Unit will be available March 2006.  The Certified Design Kit is available this month.

About IBM

IBM develops, manufactures and markets state-of-the-art semiconductor and interconnect technologies, products and services including industry-leading Power Architecture microprocessors. IBM semiconductors are a major contributor to the company's position as the world's largest information technology company. Its chip products and solutions power IBM eServer and TotalStorage systems as well as many of the world's best-known electronics brands. IBM semiconductor innovations include dual-core microprocessors, copper wiring, silicon-on-insulator and silicon germanium transistors, strained silicon, and eFUSE, a technology that enables computer chips to automatically respond to changing conditions. More information is available at: http://www.ibm.com/chips.