Meet Deep Copper. IBM Corp. Wednesday will unveil a new generation of supercomputers it says offers a major performance increase by using IBM Power3 processors with copper interconnect technology. IBM's supercomputers, which are generally very large and very expensive, tackle computing tasks that require enormous amounts of data by breaking up the data into smaller pieces and processing it in parallel on a number of nodes. While consumers won't purchase the new supercomputers, which will be used by researchers in health care or by scientists working to predict weather patterns, they may benefit from them indirectly. Walker, as part of a joint project between WPI , the University of Utah and the Center for Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions, a U.S. Department of Energy-funded organization, will use the machine to model combustion.
Copper is no longer as exotic as it was, but it is still cutting-edge.
Copper-based PowerPC processors manufactured by IBM are used, for example, in Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers and iBook portable. IBM officials said a copper-based PowerPC chip will also power a forthcoming game console from Nintendo. Put simply, copper is a more efficient conductor than aluminum, making it useful in processors because it allows for smaller, thinner interconnects. Interconnects are tiny pieces of wire that connect transistors inside a processor. Smaller interconnects make for smaller, higher-performance chips because chip makers can pack more transistors into a smaller space.