The Register UK is reporting that Motorola has "taped out" its next generation PowerPC processor, the G5. Quoting sources close to Apple, Tony Smith says that the company is ready to go into volume production soon with chips ranging from 800 MHz to 1.6 GHz. From that article:
Motorola taped out the PowerPC 8500 - aka the G5 - last week and is set to go into volume production real soon now at speeds of up to 1.6GHz - a higher clock speed than AMDis latest-generation, iPalominoi Athlon is expected to ship at - The Register has learned.
So claim sources said to be close to Apple, at any rate. The new CPU will be offered at 800MHz, 1GHz, 1.2GHz, 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz, and while the first two are nominally aimed at the embedded space - the others are aimed straight at the desktop, we hear - we can see Apple using them as to transition over from the top end G4, the PowerPC 7450.
We donit know the ship date either, though weive been told that Apple is shooting to get boxes out for a January launch. If Motorola is sampling the G5 now or is about to, then weid estimate that volume wonit begin until early to mid Q1 2002, which would enable Apple to launch at Macworld Expo San Francisco and ship the higher end boxes in, say, February, as itis done before.
The article also says that the processor will be a 64-bit unit, and that Mac OS X 10.2 will support 64-bit processing. There is a lot more information and detail we did not quote in the full article.
Thanks to Observer Hoytt for giving us the heads up on the Register UK article.