IBM to produce 0.06um PowerPCs by the end of the year.

As you might have noticed I usually do not post hardware related rumours but I think it's worth making an exception sometimes when I have interesting things to publish.

According to very reliable sources, IBM is planning to push it's PowerPC production process directly to 0.06um by the end of the year. Actually, it looks like the first tests of production of PowerPC 970 processors at 0.06um are very encouraging and that IBM is thinking about skipping a step on the roadmap of it's PowerPC processors.

The fact is that a 0.06um based PowerPC 970 will have a lot of advantages: first of all, it will be noticably cooler than the current PowerPC 970, secondly it will be able to reach even higher clock speeds, and finally, it will be cheaper to produce.

It is likely that IBM won't even produce any 0.09um PowerPC and focus only on 0.06um production process to save time and money. There is still an option to produce 0.09um processors if there are problems with the 0.06um process but IBM engineers are confident that there won't be any major problems.

Current PowerMac G5 systems are already using an excellent processor that Apple will probably continue to use on the next generation of the PowerMac G5 line. But the fact IBM wants to jump to 0.06um process for the production of it's future PowerPC processors is very good news for Apple, as it certainly means the company will be technically and financially able to go 100% G5 for all its Macs, including laptops and consumer Macs within a year. It doesn't necessarily mean that Apple will do it though. The most important thing to note is that Apple has just solved, with the current G5, the biggest problem of its hardware offering which was the processor's performance.