Re:Next-Generation IBM POWER10 Processor
by jabl on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @04:20AM
(#24196365)
As it is, POWER is on a slow decline towards irrelevance by focusing only on milking their existing enterprise customers as long as it lasts.
Which is a huge shame, the POWER ISA per se is mostly fine, and their commitment to open firmware etc. for trustworthy computing (see Raptor) is a niche that for some reason interests nobody else.
If they want to turn it around and compete with x86, ARM and maybe even RISC-V on the low end, they need to commit to openpower. Get some interesting cores open sourced under the openpower umbrella, docs, open source bus interfaces for connecting stuff on a SOC, etc. And get some decent priced hardware into the hands of hobbyists and as dev boards for embedded.
Which is a huge shame, the POWER ISA per se is mostly fine, and their commitment to open firmware etc. for trustworthy computing (see Raptor) is a niche that for some reason interests nobody else.
If they want to turn it around and compete with x86, ARM and maybe even RISC-V on the low end, they need to commit to openpower. Get some interesting cores open sourced under the openpower umbrella, docs, open source bus interfaces for connecting stuff on a SOC, etc. And get some decent priced hardware into the hands of hobbyists and as dev boards for embedded.