PWRficient 1682M: a new PowerPC CPU

A bit more than a year after the first MacIntel were announced, a new announcement shakes the market of PowerPC CPU, and it does not originate from IBM; but from a start-up company known as P.A. Semi. We already talked about this company in October 2005 as the future for PowerPC architecture. This California-based company leaded by Dan Dobberpuhl, the guy behind DEC Alpha and StrongArm designs, started shipping the first samples of its PowerPC CPU PWRficient 1682M. Its specifications are really interesting and can really compete with current Intel mobile CPU:
- Processeur Dual Core 64 Bits
- VMX unit (Altivec)
- 2MB of cache
- 2 DDR2-1066 controllers
- integrated southbridge featuring 8 PCIe controllers (one 16x)
- 2x 10Gb Ethernet and 4x 1GB Ethernet.
- virtualization
- power consumption: 5-13W (typical) at 2 GHz
- 65 nm CMOS engraving

If the battle for CPU notebook is to have the highest performance level with the lowest power consumption, the PWRficient 1682M is definitely a leader. To develop such a power efficient CPU, P.A. Semi is using a really advanced power management system.
Dozen of manufacturers are currently evaluating the PWRficient 1682M development kit.
As we mentioned it 18 months ago, targeted markets are numerous, ranging from traditional routing control planes and data planes to the growing array of embedded network services (security, RIF authentification, VoIP, message and video solutions).
As you might also remember we mentioned that Apple approached P.A. Semi when Cupertino was looking for a new CPU manufacturer when IBM failed to deliver a G5 mobile CPU, and had troubles to develop G5 desktop CPU according to the roadmap.