The i5s Start Shipping with Predictable Fits and Starts
June 14, 2004 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Last Friday was the first day of shipments for the new Power-5 based eServer i5 machines announced in May. And, as usual, there are some delays in getting the production ramped up in Rochester, Minnesota, and Dublin, Ireland, where the iSeries and pSeries lines of Power servers are manufactured. You have to keep your sense of humor in life, and I laughed when I learned that the biggest delays are for certain features of the i5 Model 520 Express configurations. You can’t make up the good jokes. They just happen. IBM likes to be able to build and ship machines in the iSeries line within one week, if possible, but for large complex machines (such as the iSeries Model 870 and 890), it often takes an extra week to burn a machine in. According to IBM’s internal manufacturing scheduling system, which I looked at on Friday, the Model 520 Express servers with feature numbers 0285 and 0286, which have to do with setups made by the Rochester Custom Solution Center, will not ship for eight weeks. This may or may not be a big deal. The scheduling system says that the raw Model 520 and 570 machines are scheduling into the week ending June 25, which means that, at the current order rate, new Model 520 and Model 570 machines as well as upgrades to these boxes can be shipped within two weeks of being ordered. The system also says that machines coming out of Rochester take four to six days to reach their destinations in the United States, from three to seven days to reach destinations in Canada, and from four to 12 days to reach Latin American destinations. This is a pretty minor delay and is consistent with a normal ramp up. The question now is whether IBM’s chip plant in East Fishkill, New York, will be able to get good enough yield with the Power5 processors to meet ramping demand. Before the launch, Power5 chips were, as one IBMer put it in March, scarcer than hen’s teeth. The ramp-up of the 130 nanometer process used to make the Power5 chips as well as the PowerPC 970 processors used by Apple in its PCs and servers has been predictably behind schedule. A lot is changing at the same time. IBM is moving from 200 millimeter to 300 millimeter silicon wafers, while at the same time transitioning from 130 nanometer copper/SOI processes to 130 nanometer copper/SOI/low-k processes. Moreover, the East Fishkill plant is largely automated, and we all know how well that worked for the Denver airport baggage system at first. (To be fair, that system now works more or less as planned, and no one gives it any good press.) With yields not where they need to be at the East Fishkill factory, according to IBM, IBM can’t push the eServer i5s so hard that it can’t meet demand. Luckily for IBM, the Power4 and Power4+ processors that are the main engines in its existing iSeries and pSeries lines are made using a 130 nanometer copper/SOI processor on 200 millimeter wafers. IBM can use price incentives to keep these Power4 and Power4+ machines rolling as Power5 chip production ramps. The yields at the East Fishkill will have to ramp up pretty fast to make both IBM and Apple happy. Apple really wants to push the G5 processor (its name for the PowerPC 970, a 64-bit variant of the Power4 chip for uniprocessor and two-way setups) very hard. Apple is IBM’s volume market for Power chips that appear in computers (as distinct from game consoles, routers, and car dashboards), and IBM has to keep Apple happy; otherwise the Microelectronics Division could lose a key customer. At the same time, IBM wants to ramp up i5 sales and is prepping the kicker to the pSeries, the p5, for market in late July. IBM also wants to launch another midrange and a whole new line of high-end i5 boxes. This is a lot to juggle at the same time. Back in early 2000, a perfect storm of excessive demand for copper-based Power chips from IBM’s Server Group and OEM customers like Apple, coupled with manufacturing yields as Big Blue transitioned from 180 nanometer to 130 nanometer copper processes in its chip plant in Burlington, caused massive delays in shipments of AS/400 and iSeries servers that eventually spilled over into its Unix server line, too. It took IBM the better part of six months to clear up this situation and make supply meet demand. And then, just because Murphy’s Law is cruel, when IBM had ramped up production, the bottom fell out of the world economy, and the IT market went down with it. With a recovery on the way, and significant technical advances in the Power5, compared with rivals, you can bet that IBM is going to work like crazy to not repeat what happened in 2000. But ramping up chip production is one of the toughest jobs in the world, and it almost never goes as expected. With demand uncertain and chip-making capability still somewhat uncertain, history could once again repeat itself, no matter what IBM does. It seems to me that the i5 announcements were moved up ahead of the p5 announcements not just because OS/400 V5R3 was ready and AIX V5R3 was not, but so that IBM could stagger the demand a little better, giving itself time to ramp up the Power5s before all hell breaks loose in a few months. Soon, the i5 line will get fleshed out completely, and the p5 will come on line. I’ll be keeping an eye on the i5 availability situation, so you can make your plans. And just so you know: delays in the range of six to eight weeks are common for many parts, particularly those that are not manufactured in large numbers by IBM or that are coming from third parties (as many peripheral cards do these days). Right now, for instance, IBM has a six-week availability for a number of Model 270, 820, and 840 processors. Delays are common, and not just for new gear.
Editor’s Note: This article has been corrected since its original publication. The Power5 and PowerPC 970 processors are not made with a 90 nanometer process, but rather an upgraded 130 nanometer process. The Power5+ chips will use the 90 nanometer process some time next year. Guild Companies regrets the error. [Correction made 06/18/04] |