PowerPC G4 is a designation formerly used by
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
and
Eyetech
Eyetech Group Ltd is a company founded in 1983, in order to provide commercial companies with automatical data collection systems. They had already been involved in the provision of the automatic toll collection systems used at the Dartford River C ...
to describe a ''fourth generation'' of 32-bit
PowerPC
PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...
microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
s. Apple has applied this name to various (though closely related) processor models from
Freescale
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embed ...
, a former part of
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...
. Motorola and Freescale's proper name of this family of processors is PowerPC 74xx.
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
computers such as the
PowerBook G4
The PowerBook G4 is a series of notebook computers manufactured, marketed, and sold by Apple Computer between 2001 and 2006 as part of its PowerBook line of notebooks. The PowerBook G4 runs on the RISC-based PowerPC G4 processor, designed by the ...
and
iBook G4
iBook is a line of laptop computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted entry-level, consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher-en ...
laptops and the
Power Mac G4
The Power Mac G4 is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2004 as part of the Power Macintosh line. Built around the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors, the Power Mac G4 was marketed by ...
and
Power Mac G4 Cube
The Power Mac G4 Cube is a Macintosh personal computer sold by Apple Computer, Inc. between July 2000 and 2001. Designed by Jonathan Ive, the Cube was conceived by Apple chief executive officer (CEO) Steve Jobs, who held an interest in a power ...
desktops all took their name from the processor. PowerPC G4 processors were also used in the
eMac
The eMac (short for education Mac) is a discontinued all-in-one Macintosh desktop computer that was produced and designed by Apple Computer Released in 2002, it was originally aimed at the education market, but was later made available as a ...
, first-generation
Xserve
Xserve is a line of rack unit computers designed by Apple Inc. for use as servers. Introduced in 2002, it was Apple's first designated server hardware design since the Apple Network Server in 1996. In the meantime, ordinary Power Macintosh G3 a ...
s, first-generation
Mac Mini
Mac Mini (stylized as Mac mini) is a small form factor (desktop and motherboard), small form factor desktop computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. , it is positioned between the consumer all-in-one iMac (Intel-based), iMac and the profes ...
s, and the
iMac G4
The iMac G4 is an all-in-one personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from January 2002 to August 2004. It replaced the iMac G3 and was succeeded by the iMac G5.
Design and marketing
The iMac G4 featured an L ...
before the introduction of the
PowerPC 970
The PowerPC 970, PowerPC 970FX, and PowerPC 970MP are 64-bit PowerPC processors from IBM introduced in 2002. When used in PowerPC-based Macintosh computers, Apple referred to them as the PowerPC G5.
The 970 family was created through a collab ...
.
Apple completely phased out the G4 series for desktop models after it selected the 64-bit IBM-produced PowerPC 970 processor as the basis for its PowerPC G5 series. The last desktop model that used the G4 was the Mac Mini which now comes with an
Apple M1
Apple M1 is a series of ARM architecture, ARM-based system-on-a-chip, systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) Apple silicon, designed by Apple Inc. as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) for its Mac (computer), Mac desktop compu ...
processor. The last portable to use the G4 was the
iBook
iBook is a line of laptop computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted entry-level, consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher-en ...
G4 but was replaced by the Intel-based
MacBook. The PowerBook G4 has been replaced by the Intel-based
MacBook Pro.
The PowerPC G4 processors are also popular in other computer systems, such as the
AmigaOne
AmigaOne is a series of computers intended to run AmigaOS 4 developed by Hyperion Entertainment, as a successor to the Amiga series by Commodore International. Earlier models were produced by Eyetech, and were based on the ''Teron'' series of Powe ...
series of computers and the
Pegasos
Pegasos is a MicroATX motherboard powered by a PowerPC 750CXe or PowerPC 7447 microprocessor, featuring three PCI slots, one AGP slot, two Ethernet ports (10/100/1000 & 10/100), USB, DDR, AC'97 sound, and FireWire. Like the PowerPC Macintosh ...
from
Genesi
Genesi is an international group of technology and consulting companies in the United States, Mexico and Germany. It is most widely known for designing and manufacturing ARM architecture and Power ISA-based computing devices. The Genesi Group cons ...
. Besides desktop computers the PowerPC G4 is popular in embedded environments, like routers, telecom switches, imaging, media processing, avionics and military applications, where one can take advantage of the
AltiVec and its
SMP capabilities.
PowerPC 7400
The PowerPC 7400 (code-named "Max") debuted in August 1999 and was the first processor to carry the "G4" moniker. The chip operates at speeds ranging from 350 to 500
MHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
and contains 10.5 million transistors, manufactured using Motorola's 0.20 μm HiPerMOS6 process. The
die
Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life.
Die may also refer to:
Games
* Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers
Manufacturing
* Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...
measures 83 mm
2 and features
copper interconnects
In semiconductor technology, copper interconnects are interconnects made of copper. They are used in silicon integrated circuits (ICs) to reduce propagation delays and power consumption. Since copper is a better conductor than aluminium, ICs usi ...
.
Motorola had promised Apple to deliver parts with speed up to 500 MHz, but
yields proved too low initially. This forced Apple to take back the advertised 500 MHz models of
Power Mac G4
The Power Mac G4 is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2004 as part of the Power Macintosh line. Built around the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors, the Power Mac G4 was marketed by ...
. The Power Mac series was downgraded abruptly from 400, 450, and 500 MHz processor speeds to 350, 400, and 450 MHz while problems with the chip were ironed out. The incident generated a rift in the Apple-Motorola relationship, and reportedly caused Apple to ask IBM for assistance to get the production yields up on the Motorola 7400 series line. The 500 MHz model was reintroduced on February 16, 2000.
Design
Much of the 7400 design was done by Motorola in close co-operation with
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
and
IBM. IBM, the third member of the
AIM alliance
The AIM alliance, also known as the PowerPC alliance, was formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple, IBM, and Motorola. Its goal was to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the POWER instruction set architecture. It ...
, designed the chip together with Motorola in its Somerset design center, but chose not to manufacture it, because it did not see the need back then for the Vector Processing Unit. Ultimately, the G4 architecture design contained a 128-bit vector processing unit labelled
AltiVec by Motorola while Apple marketing referred to it as the "Velocity Engine".
The
PowerPC 970
The PowerPC 970, PowerPC 970FX, and PowerPC 970MP are 64-bit PowerPC processors from IBM introduced in 2002. When used in PowerPC-based Macintosh computers, Apple referred to them as the PowerPC G5.
The 970 family was created through a collab ...
(G5) was the first IBM-manufactured CPU to implement
VMX/AltiVec, for which IBM reused the old 7400 design they still had from the design they did with Motorola in Somerset. The
Xenon
Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...
CPU in the
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
also features VMX, with added proprietary extensions made especially for Microsoft.
POWER6
The POWER6 is a microprocessor developed by IBM that implemented the Power ISA v.2.03. When it became available in systems in 2007, it succeeded the POWER5+ as IBM's flagship Power microprocessor. It is claimed to be part of the eCLipz projec ...
, introduced in 2007, is IBMs first "
big iron
"Big Iron" is a country ballad written and performed by Marty Robbins, originally released as an album track on ''Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs'' in September 1959, then as a single in February 1960 with the song "Saddle Tramp" as the B-si ...
" CPU to also implement VMX.
With the AltiVec unit, the 7400 microprocessor can do four-way single precision (32-bit) floating point math, or 16-way 8-bit, 8-way 16-bit or four-way 32-bit integer math in a single cycle. Furthermore, the vector processing unit is
superscalar
A superscalar processor is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. In contrast to a scalar processor, which can execute at most one single instruction per clock cycle, a sup ...
, and can do two vector operations at the same time. Compared to
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
's
x86
x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...
microprocessors at the time, this feature offered a substantial performance boost to applications designed to take advantage of the AltiVec unit. Some examples are Adobe Photoshop which utilises the AltiVec unit for faster rendering of effects and transitions, and Apple's
iLife suite which takes advantage of the unit for importing and converting files on the fly.
Additionally, the 7400 has enhanced support for
symmetric multiprocessing
Symmetric multiprocessing or shared-memory multiprocessing (SMP) involves a multiprocessor computer hardware and software architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single, shared main memory, have full access to all ...
(SMP) thanks to an improved cache coherency protocol (
MERSI) and a 64-bit
floating point unit
Floating may refer to:
* a type of dental work performed on horse teeth
* use of an isolation tank
* the guitar-playing technique where chords are sustained rather than scratched
* ''Floating'' (play), by Hugh Hughes
* Floating (psychological phe ...
(FPU), derived in part from the
604 series. The
603 series had a 32-bit FPU, which took two
clock cycle
In electronics and especially synchronous digital circuits, a clock signal (historically also known as ''logic beat'') oscillates between a high and a low state and is used like a metronome to coordinate actions of digital circuits.
A clock sign ...
s to accomplish 64-bit
floating point
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be ...
arithmetic.
The PowerPC G4 family supports two bus technologies, the older
60x bus which it shares with the
PowerPC 600 The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...
and
PowerPC 7xx
The PowerPC 7xx is a family of third generation 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors designed and manufactured by IBM and Motorola (spun off as Freescale Semiconductor bought by NXP Semiconductors). This family is called the PowerPC G3 by its well-kno ...
families, and the more advanced MPX bus. Devices that utilize the 60x bus can be made compatible with either 6xx or 7xx processors, enabling a wide variety of offerings and a clear and cheap upgrade path while keeping compatibility issues at a minimum. There are primarily two companies manufacturing system controllers for 7xx and 7xxx computers,
Tundra
In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless moun ...
with their Tsi1xx controllers and
Marvell with their Discovery controllers.
PowerPC 7410
The PowerPC 7410 "Nitro" is a low-power version of the 7400 but it was manufactured at 180 nm instead of 200 nm. Like the 7400 it has 10.5 million transistors. It debuted in the
PowerBook G4
The PowerBook G4 is a series of notebook computers manufactured, marketed, and sold by Apple Computer between 2001 and 2006 as part of its PowerBook line of notebooks. The PowerBook G4 runs on the RISC-based PowerPC G4 processor, designed by the ...
on 9 January 2001.
The chip added the ability to use all or half of its cache as high-speed, non-cached memory mapped to the processor's physical address space as desired. This feature was used by
embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...
s vendors such as
Mercury Computer Systems
Mercury Systems, Inc. is a technology company serving the aerospace and defense industry. It designs, develops and manufactures open architecture computer hardware and software products, including secure embedded processing modules and subsystem ...
.
PowerPC 7450
The PowerPC 7450 "Voyager"/"V'ger" was the only major redesign of the G4 processor. The 33-million transistor chip extended significantly the execution pipeline of 7400 (7 vs. 4 stages minimum) to reach higher clock speeds, improved instruction throughput (3 + branch vs. 2 + branch per cycle) to compensate for higher instruction latency, replaced an external L2 cache (up to 2 MB 2-way set associative, 64-bit data path) with an integrated one (256 KB 8-way set associative, 256-bit data path), supported an external L3 cache (up to 2 MB 8-way set associative, 64-bit data path), and featured many other architectural advancements. The AltiVec unit was improved with the 7450; instead of executing one vector
permute instruction
Permute (and Shuffle) instructions, part of bit manipulation as well as vector processing, copy unaltered contents from a source array to a destination array, where the indices are specified by a second source array. The size (bitwidth) of the so ...
and one vector ALU (simple int, complex int, float) instruction per cycle like 7400/7410, the 7450 and its Motorola/Freescale-followers can execute two arbitrary vector instructions simultaneously (permute, simple int, complex int, float). It was introduced with the 733 MHz
Power Mac G4
The Power Mac G4 is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2004 as part of the Power Macintosh line. Built around the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors, the Power Mac G4 was marketed by ...
on 9 January 2001. Motorola followed with an interim release, the 7451, codenamed "Apollo 6", just like the 7455. Early
AmigaOne
AmigaOne is a series of computers intended to run AmigaOS 4 developed by Hyperion Entertainment, as a successor to the Amiga series by Commodore International. Earlier models were produced by Eyetech, and were based on the ''Teron'' series of Powe ...
XE computers were shipped with the 7451 processor.
The enhancements to the 745x design gave it the nicknames G4e or G4+ but these were never official designations.
PowerPC 7445 and 7455
The PowerPC 7455 "Apollo 6" was introduced in January 2002. It came with a wider, 256-bit on-chip cache path, and was fabricated in Motorola's 0.18 μm (180 nm) HiPerMOS process with copper interconnects and
SOI
''Soi'' ( th, ซอย ) is the term used in Thailand for a side-street branching off a major street (''thanon'', th, ถนน). An alley is called a ''trok'' ( th, ตรอก).
Overview
Sois are usually numbered, and are referred to by th ...
. It was the first processor in an Apple computer to pass the 1 GHz mark.
The 7445 is the same chip without the L3 cache interface.
The 7455 is used in the
AmigaOne
AmigaOne is a series of computers intended to run AmigaOS 4 developed by Hyperion Entertainment, as a successor to the Amiga series by Commodore International. Earlier models were produced by Eyetech, and were based on the ''Teron'' series of Powe ...
XE G4, and the dual 1 GHz
Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver 2002)
PowerPC 7447 and 7457
The PowerPC 7447 "Apollo 7" is slightly improved from the 7450/55, it has a 512 KB on-chip L2 cache and was manufactured in a
130 nm
The 130 nanometer (130 nm) process refers to the level of semiconductor process technology that was reached in the 2000–2001 timeframe, by most leading semiconductor companies, like Intel, Texas Instruments, IBM, and TSMC.
The origin of the 1 ...
process with SOI, hence drawing less power. It has 58 million transistors. With the 7447A, which introduced an integrated thermal diode as well as DFS (
dynamic frequency scaling
Dynamic frequency scaling (also known as CPU throttling) is a power management technique in computer architecture whereby the frequency of a microprocessor can be automatically adjusted "on the fly" depending on the actual needs, to conserve ...
) Freescale was able to reach a slightly higher clock. The 7447B is effectively a 7447A with even higher frequency scaling, with clock rates up to 1.7 GHz officially and easily up to 2.4 GHz through
overclocking
In computing, overclocking is the practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer. Commonly, operating voltage is also increased to maintain a component's operational stability at accelerated spe ...
. The 7457 and 7457A have an additional L3 cache interface, supporting up to 4 MB of L3 cache, up from 2 MB supported by the 7455 and 7450. However, its frequency scaling stagnated when Apple chose to use the 7447(s) instead of the 7457(s), despite the 7457 being the L3 cache-enabled successor to the L3 cache-enabled 7455 that Apple used before.
The only companies that offer the 7457 in the form of upgrades for the
Power Mac G4
The Power Mac G4 is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2004 as part of the Power Macintosh line. Built around the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors, the Power Mac G4 was marketed by ...
,
iMac G4
The iMac G4 is an all-in-one personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from January 2002 to August 2004. It replaced the iMac G3 and was succeeded by the iMac G5.
Design and marketing
The iMac G4 featured an L ...
, and
Power Mac G4 Cube
The Power Mac G4 Cube is a Macintosh personal computer sold by Apple Computer, Inc. between July 2000 and 2001. Designed by Jonathan Ive, the Cube was conceived by Apple chief executive officer (CEO) Steve Jobs, who held an interest in a power ...
are Giga Designs, Sonnet Technology, Daystar Technology (they use the 7457 only for iMac G4 upgrades) and PowerLogix. The
Pegasos
Pegasos is a MicroATX motherboard powered by a PowerPC 750CXe or PowerPC 7447 microprocessor, featuring three PCI slots, one AGP slot, two Ethernet ports (10/100/1000 & 10/100), USB, DDR, AC'97 sound, and FireWire. Like the PowerPC Macintosh ...
computer platform from
Genesi
Genesi is an international group of technology and consulting companies in the United States, Mexico and Germany. It is most widely known for designing and manufacturing ARM architecture and Power ISA-based computing devices. The Genesi Group cons ...
also uses 7447 in its Pegasos-II/G4.
The 7457 is often used to repair an AmigaOne XE CPU module; some
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early version ...
software with the 7457 installed may mistake the AmigaOne for a Pegasos II computer as there were never any official 7457 boards released by
Eyetech
Eyetech Group Ltd is a company founded in 1983, in order to provide commercial companies with automatical data collection systems. They had already been involved in the provision of the automatic toll collection systems used at the Dartford River C ...
.
PowerPC 7448
The PowerPC 7448 "Apollo 8" is an evolution of the PowerPC 7447B announced at the first Freescale Technology Forum in June 2005. Improvements were a larger 1 MB L2 cache, a faster 200 MHz front side bus, and lower power consumption (18 W at 1.7 GHz). It was fabricated in a 90 nm process with copper interconnects and SOI.
PowerPC 7448 users were:
* Daystar for their High-Res Aluminum PowerBook G4 upgrades (Daystar's Low-Res Aluminum PowerBook G4 upgrades used the 7447A, not the 7448)
* NewerTech for their Power Mac G4 upgrades
* PowerLogix for their Power Mac G4 Cube upgrade
* Cisco in NPE-G2 network processor module for their 7200VXR routers
* Cisco 7201 Router
* Extreme Engineering Solutions for their XPedite6244 single board computer
* Aitech for their C104 CompactPCI single board computer
*
Emerson Network Power Emerson may refer to:
People
* Emerson (surname), a surname (and list of people with that name)
* Emerson (given name), a given name (and list of people with that name)
Places Australia
*Emerson Crossing, a place in Adelaide
Canada
* Emerson, Ma ...
for their PmPPC7448 PMC module
[http://static6.arrow.com/aropdfconversion/ad4aa5d5f0e38c4028118cabe7ce2d17a41e7530/pmppc7448%20ds.pdf ]
e600
In 2004, Freescale renamed the G4 core to e600 and changed its focus from general CPUs to high-end embedded
SoC devices, and introduced a new naming scheme, MPC86xx. The 7448 was to be the last pure G4 and it formed the base of the new e600 core with a seven-stage, three-issue pipeline, and a powerful
branch prediction unit which handles up to sixteen instructions out-of-order. It has an enhanced AltiVec unit capable of limited
out-of-order execution
In computer engineering, out-of-order execution (or more formally dynamic execution) is a paradigm used in most high-performance central processing units to make use of instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted. In this paradigm, a proce ...
and a 1 MB L2 cache.
Device list
''This list is a complete list of known G4 based designs (excluding newer core e600 designs). The pictures are illustrations and not to scale.''
See also
*
List of Macintosh models grouped by CPU type This list of Mac models grouped by CPU type contains all central processing units (CPUs) used by Apple Inc. for their Mac (computer), Mac computers. It is grouped by processor family, processor model, and then chronologically by Mac models.
Motoro ...
References
*
Diefendorff, Keith (25 October 1999). "PowerPC G4 Gains Velocity". ''
Microprocessor Report
''Microprocessor Report'' is a newsletter covering the microprocessor industry. The publication is accessible only to paying subscribers. To avoid bias, it does not take advertisements.
The publication provides extensive analysis of new high-perfo ...
''. pp. 10–15.
* Gwennap, Linley (16 November 1998). "G4 Is First PowerPC With AltiVec". ''
Microprocessor Report
''Microprocessor Report'' is a newsletter covering the microprocessor industry. The publication is accessible only to paying subscribers. To avoid bias, it does not take advertisements.
The publication provides extensive analysis of new high-perfo ...
''.
* Halfhill, Tom R. (5 July 2005). "PowerPC Ain't Dead Yet". ''
Microprocessor Report
''Microprocessor Report'' is a newsletter covering the microprocessor industry. The publication is accessible only to paying subscribers. To avoid bias, it does not take advertisements.
The publication provides extensive analysis of new high-perfo ...
''. pp. 13–15.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Powerpc G4
G4
G4
Motorola microprocessors
Superscalar microprocessors
32-bit microprocessors