IBM announced today their new SOI (Silicon on insulator) chip technology. This is a long sought after step in the ever shrinking chip wars. IBM has clearly established itself as the technological leader. This will not only speed up the speed of chips, but also reduce size, heat dissipation, and energy requirements. We'll see these new chips in large IBM systems first, but the sfgate article (link above) quotes IBM as saying that the new chips "will appear in a portable device this year." Since IBM doesn't make chips for the Wintel world, I've got to think this means Apple. Go IBM. This could not only break through the speed plateau that the G4 seems to be stuck on, but also solve the heat problems with putting these things into the Powerbook. If Apple can ship a +700 mhz g4 powerbook before Jan (especially in a graphite ibook like shell) I doubt they could make enough to satisfy demand.
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- jim 5-23-2000 6:21 pm