IBM is working on a new chip that will have 8 cores clocked at 4.0GHz and will support 4 threads per core. Called the 'Power7,' each chip can push 256 gigaflops and they are being arranged in dual-chip modules. The IBM documents have the eight-core Power7 being arranged in dual-chip modules. So, that's 16-cores per module. As IBM tells it, each core will show 32 gigaflops of performance, bringing each chip to 256 gigaflops. Just on the gigaflop basis, that makes Power7 twice as fast per core as today's dual-core Power6 chips, although the actual clock rate on the Power7 chips should be well below the 5.0GHz Power6 speed demon. In fact, according to our documents, IBM will ship Power7 at 4.0GHz in 2010 on a 45nm process.

For some customers, IBM looks set to create 2U systems with four of the dual-chip modules, giving the server 64 cores of fun. These 2U systems will support up to 128GB of memory and hit 2 teraflops. IBM has an architecture that will let supercomputing types combine these 2U boxes to form a massive unit with 1,024 cores, hitting 32 teraflops of performance with 2TB of memory. And, er, if you are a seriously demanding type, boy, does IBM have the system for you :P :-)