POWER6
IBM's dual-core processor generation shipped starting May 2007, notable for very high clock speeds and hardware decimal floating-point support.
POWER6 shipped starting May 2007. It is a dual-core, two-way simultaneous-multithreaded chip that prioritized clock speed over core count, standard parts ran roughly 3.5-4.2 GHz, and the later POWER6+ refresh reached up to 4.7-5.0 GHz in some configurations. POWER6 added decimal floating-point arithmetic in hardware and remained binary compatible with POWER5 software.
Related Terms
Power Systems
The unified IBM server brand created in April 2008 when System i and System p, previously separate product lines, merged on the POWER6 processor generation.
System i
IBM's server product line running i5/OS (later IBM i), the direct descendant of the AS/400, sold as a separate brand from System p until the 2008 Power Systems unification.
System p
IBM's AIX/Linux-focused server product line, sold on the same underlying POWER processor family as System i but as a separate brand until the 2008 Power Systems unification.
POWER6+
A later, higher-clocked refresh of the POWER6 processor, not a separate generation, reaching clock speeds up to roughly 4.7-5.0 GHz on some configurations.