Michael Dolan Dot Com

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

IBM POWER processors once again take 100% of Mars’ market share

http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/070803/0285894.html

Saw this quote and had to laugh – apparently the new rovers are powered by IBM Power chips. I didn’t know that all the Mars rovers were using Power chips until I read this – talk about low power, resilient, serviceable, and reliable.

There is a humorous line in the press release copied here:

Raj Desai, vice president IBM Global Engineering Solutions, “With Power-based processors in all three major game consoles, in fifty percent of automobile models worldwide, in sixty percent of the world’s fastest computers, and in one hundred percent of the systems on Mars, Power is truly the most versatile computing platform in the solar system.”

It sounds like the Power processor is the Panasonic Toughbook of processors:

Surviving windstorms with speeds of up to 80 miles per hour and temperatures of -199 degrees Fahrenheit, Power, once radiation hardened, has become the de facto standard for space qualified processors.