90nm Growing Pains - MacRumors
Skip to Content

90nm Growing Pains

IDG News details the challenges IBM has faced in ramping up 90nm processor production in their East Fishkill plant. The poor yields were cited by Apple as the reason for the shipping delays on the Xserve G5 last quarter.

The rest of the industry has also seen delays in 90nm Production. AMD is expected to reach commercial production of 90nm chips late this year ("September-October-November"), while Intel appears to be in production at this time.

Apple's new PowerMac G5 updates will likely use the 90nm part from IBM. Readers finally report shipments of their Xserve G5s, indicating that production is proceeding. PowerMac and "metallic" display updates are still expected shortly.

Related Roundup: Studio Display
Related Forums: Mac Accessories, Mac Pro

Popular Stories

apple silicon feature joeblue

Apple Reportedly Worked on Two 'Extreme' Chips

Sunday July 19, 2026 8:51 am PDT by
Apple once developed "M2 Extreme" and "M3 Extreme" chips for the Mac Pro, but it decided not to release them, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He first reported on this topic in 2022, and he touched on it again in his Power On newsletter today. "Extreme" chips would have had twice as many CPU and GPU cores as Apple's "Ultra" chips. "The idea was to offer twice as many graphics and...
Mac Pro Feature Teal

Apple Shelved Two Mac Pro Models, Including an Intel-Based One

Monday July 20, 2026 6:30 am PDT by
Apple developed two Mac Pro models in recent years that never made it to market, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman revealed that Apple internally developed two unreleased Mac Pro projects codenamed J170 and J190 before ultimately discontinuing the machine altogether. As for new Mac Pro hardware, there were two additional models developed by...
Classic Mac Pro Feature

Mac Pro Turns 20 Today, Five Months After Apple Killed It

Friday August 7, 2026 5:39 am PDT by
Apple announced the original Mac Pro 20 years ago today, with the anniversary landing five months after the company discontinued the machine for good. On August 7, 2006, Apple unveiled the first Mac Pro, powered by two dual-core 64-bit Xeon processors that Apple said made it up to twice as fast as the Power Mac G5 it replaced. It was the last Mac to complete Apple's transition from PowerPC...