POWER5 offers significantly increased performance over previous POWER designs by incorporating simultaneous multithreading, an enhanced memory subsystem, and extensive RAS and power management support. The 276M transistor processor is implemented in 130nm silicon-on-insulator technology with 8-level of Cu metallization and operates at >1.5 GHz. General TermsDesign Keywords POWER5, Microprocessor Design, Simultaneous Multi-threading (SMT), Temperature Sensor, Power Reduction, Clock Gating POWER5 TM is the next generation of IBM's POWER microprocessors. This design, shown below in Figure 1, sets a new standard of industry-leading server performance by incorporating simultaneous multithreading (SMT), an enhanced distributed switch and memory subsystem supporting 1-64w SMP, and extensive RAS support. First pass hardware using IBM's 130nm silicon-on-insulator technology operates above 1.5GHz at 1.3V.POWER5's dual-threaded SMT [1] creates up to two virtual processors per core, improving execution unit utilization and masking memory latency. Although a simplistic SMT implementation promised ~20% performance improvement, resizing critical micro-architectural resources almost doubles in many cases the SMT performance benefit at a 24% area cost per core.The two SMT cores interface with an enhanced memory subsystem. The cache hierarchy includes a larger (1.9MB) L2 cache, reduced L3 latency, and a larger (36MB) L3 cache located on a custom DRAM companion chip. The new on-chip main memory controller improves latency and the enhanced interconnect fabric extends SMP scalability. Figure 2 depicts the microarchitectural changes introduced with POWER5 chip.

The POWER4 chip, functioning in the laboratory at frequencies >1GHz, contains two independent processor cores, a shared L2, an L3 directory and all of the logic needed to form large SMPs. The chip, containing over 170M transistors, is fabricated using a 0.18µm CMOS SOI technology with 7-layer copper metallization. The physical design challenges for this chip are to guarantee functionality of all circuits, meet cycle time goals, check complex ground rules, verify that the transistors implement the VHDL properly, and meet test, power, and clock-distribution requirements on an aggressive schedule with a design team at multiple geographically-separated sites.Each POWER4 core [1] is an out-of-order superscalar design containing an instruction fetch unit with its 64kB L1 instruction cache, an instruction decode unit, two fixed-point and two floating-point execution units, dual load store execution units with a dual-ported 32kB L1 data cache, a branch execution unit, an execution unit to perform logical operations on the condition register, and a sequencing unit to manage instructions in flight. Instructions can be issued to each execution unit every cycle. Up to 8 data and 3 instruction cache misses are supported. In excess of 200 instructions can be in various stages of execution. The two cores share an 8-way set-associative unified L2 organized as 3 independent cache controllers. In aggregate, 12 outstanding L2 misses can be supported by the L2. Figure 15.2.1 shows an 8-way module, with 4 POWER4 chips, that is used as a system building block. A photo of the actual multi-chip module is shown in Figure 15.2.2. All logic necessary to communicate between POWER4 chips is contained on the chip. Multiple modules can be interconnected to form larger SMP systems. POWER4 to POWER4 buses on and off module operate at half the processor speed. Buses to and from an off-chip L3 and memory operate at one-third the processor speed. Figure 15.2.3 lists the number of objects that are placed on the chip. The chip, with 2208 signal I/O C4s and over 5500 total C4s including power and ground, supports greater than 1Tb/s peak bandwidth.The chip physical design is built on a hierarchy of transistors, macros, units, microprocessor cores and chip. Three types of macros are employed: custom, SRAM and synthesized. During the high-level design phase, the macros, units, core and chip are all assigned contracts for timing, area, shape, wiring tracks and I/O. Timing and physical design of the chip are done concurrently on all levels of the hierarchy. All major buses are routed early in the design. Figure 15.2.4 shows the floorplanned buses. As the design progresses contracts are modified to reflect the actual design. Significant design constraints include maintaining a slew rate of <300ps on all transitions, with a wire signal delay of approximately 100ps/mm. These constraints require more than 70k buffers/inverters to be inserted. In the final months of the design, turn-around-time from entering design changes to a chip level timing run is <1 day. ...

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The IBM POWER6e microprocessor is a 790 million-transistor chip that runs at a clock frequency of greater than 4 GHz. The complexity and size of the POWER6 microprocessor, together with its high operating frequency, present a number of significant challenges. This paper describes the physical design and design methodology of the POWER6 processor. Emphasis is placed on aspects of the design methodology, technology, clock distribution, integration, chip analysis, power and performance, random logic macro (RLM), and design data management processes that enabled the design to be completed and the project goals to be met.

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