IBM POWER architecture

IBM POWER is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by IBM. The name is an acronym for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC.

The ISA was used for high-end IBM microprocessors during the early 1990s and were used in many of IBM's servers, minicomputers, workstations, and supercomputers. These processors are called POWER1 (RIOS-1, RIOS.9, RSC, RAD6000) and POWER2 (POWER2, POWER2+ and P2SC).

The ISA evolved into the PowerPC instruction set architecture and was itself deprecated in 1998, when IBM introduced the POWER3 processor that was mainly a 32/64-bit PowerPC processor but included IBM POWER architecture features for backwards compatibility. The original IBM POWER architecture was then abandoned. PowerPC evolved again into the Power ISA in 2006.

IBM continues to develop PowerPC microprocessor cores for use in their application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) offerings. Many high volume applications embed PowerPC cores.

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