High-performance microprocessors

IBM has a long history of pushing the state of the art in processor design. IBM's large scale server machines (starting with the IBM 360 and progressing to the modern CMOS 390 machines) have pioneered most of the ideas now considered "standard" in processor design, including out-of-order execution, speculative execution, pipelines, caches, and multiprocessor designs. IBM also invented the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) concept, and built the first RISC in the 801 project in the Research Division. This work formed the basis for our RISC System/6000 designs and led to the PowerPC processors used by the Apple PowerMac (TM). Recently, a 64-bit version of the PowerPC has been adopted by the easy-to-use midrange AS/400.

Research is done in the areas of microarchitecture, circuit design, process technology and CAD tools all with the goal of producing the more powerful microprocessors that our customers demand. Emphasis is placed both on improving the "power" of a design by improving the instructions per cycle, and on improving the cycle time (the "megaHertz") as well.