POWER series of processors are the building block for IBM's p-Series servers. With its leading edge microarchitecture, technology and efficient implementation, POWER processors are the dominating RISC processor technology today. POWER processors form the building block for IBM's p-Series servers that has the largest UNIX marketshare. Over the last 20 years, POWER processors have incorporated many technological innovations, often leading the industry with its new technologies. In this talk, we will describe many key architectural, micro-architectural, RAS and power-management features of POWER7 core for the first time. POWER7 is IBM's first 8-core processor chip, with each core capable of 4 way SMT, fabricated in IBM's 45nm SOI technology with 11 levels of metal. Many details of the processor core will be revealed in this talk for the first time. This talk will also provide many insights and discuss technical issues and challenges related to designing high-performance, power-efficient multi-core chips for building balanced servers.

Balaram Sinharoy ([email protected]) is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the chief architect of IBM's POWER7 processor. Before POWER7, he was the Chief Architect for POWER5 processor. Dr. Sinharoy has published numerous articles and received over 50 patents in the area of computer architecture, with many more patents pending. Dr. Sinharoy also received several IBM corporate awards for his work in several generations of POWER microprocessors. Dr. Sinharoy is an IBM Master Inventor and an IEEE Fellow.