0.06um PowerPCs?

[JoeRadar]

Proposal: rumor stock market

Is it probable? Absolutely not.

I think probably not true as well...

I think this is probably not true.

MacRumors should start a Rumors Market, where users can place MacRumor bucks on different rumors.

I have seen this around for other topics on the Internet, and of course DARPA had a planned "terrorism futures market". More details can be found at these other site.

The basic idea is that a rumor is floated with a specific date attached to it, and Arn or someone gives it an initial price. For example, By March 31, 2004 Apple will come out with a PB line based on the 0.06 CPU. A user can buy into the rumor, which will tend to drive its price up, or he can sell (if he owns a share), which will drive the price down. If the date arrives and the rumor fails to materialize, all the share owners in that rumor lose money. If the rumor come true by the date, all share owners are rewarded by some amount.

MacRumors could have a link to all the Rumors currently being tracked, their current price, and their price over time. Perhaps quarterly MacRumors can post the top financial winners, and maybe give them a T-shirt.

Any thoughts?

 

[nek]

I don't think this 60nm rumor is very likely. Macosrumors (rather than macosxrumors) has a more likely rumor of the PPC970 moving to 90nm in the next 6 months.

I'd like to see a POWER 5 based PowerPC arrive by the end of next year. It has potential with its Simultaneous Multi-threading technology to create 4 virtual processors on a dual core processor and dynamic power shifting to automatically reduce power used.

 

[bored]

MacRumors should start a Rumors Market, where users can place MacRumor bucks on different rumors.

It's been done: rumortracker.com (R.I.P.)

 

[neutrino23]

not true

More likely they heard about IBM doing research on a 60nm process. There might be small pilot project in the lab trying to build 60nm chips. Or perhaps that pilot project will start building 60nm chips by the end of the year.

IBM (and others) are always doing research on the next several generations. It takes a long time to learn how to reliably manufacture chips before transferring the technology from lab to fab.

For example, I read somewhere earlier this year that IBM intends to start producing carbon nanotube based semiconductor product by around 2010. Even that sounds optimistic. You see lots of nanotube research going on all over, but that doesn't mean we'll see a nanotube based PPC by Christmas.

 

[tduality]

Re: long story

Originally posted by shadowself
First, the masks are not cut with light (lasers, UV, x-ray, synchrotron radiation, etc.). The masks are cut with electron beams. They have been (for the most critical masks) for many, many years -- back into the 80s for some masks. Electron beam work is extremely precise, but still very expensive compared to photon work. Also resists (the material put on the wafers and exposed to the light shining through the masks) are not as useable for electron beam work as they are for light (photon) work.

<snip loads of interesting stuff>

Bottom line: Is it possible to move the production line to 60nm in 2003 or even 2004? Yes, it is theoretically possible. Is it probable? Absolutely not.

Someone who really seems to know what he's talking about. Thanks. Very interesting.

 

[eric67]

IBM and PPC970 and future

Originally posted by Tim Flynn
I don't think they would make the jump to .06 bypassing .09.
There is still problems with .09 like leakage current power dissipation.

Dear Mac fans,
just go to hardmac.com (08/09/03) to read the summary of different "anonymous" sources, then I think you will get a more realistic indea of what IBM is cooking.
I think it actually soundsmore realistic