IBM backs HyperTransport

IBM, National Semiconductor, Texas Instruments and EMC have joined the HyperTransport Technology Consortium, the organisation said today.

IBM, at least, was keen to point out that that the move is not a rejection of Rapid IO, the other next-generation chip-to-chip bus the company has been backing.

"HyperTransport is one of many I/O technologies that is rapidly becoming a standard chip-to-chip communications technology for high-performance processors and subsystems," said Lisa Su, director of PowerPC and emerging products at IBM Microelectronics, in a statement. "We are pleased to provide HyperTransport along with other leading I/O technologies to our customers requiring low latency and high bandwidth."

Su's role suggests that IBM may be looking to extend its PowerPC processor family with HyperTransport. While IBM's 64-bit PowerPC 970 chip doesn't support HT, the chip's chief 970 customer, Apple, does use the next-generation bus to connect its IBM-manufactured North Bridge chip to its South Bridge part.

HyperTransport is a serial, point-to-point bus designed to allow chips to exchange data at speeds of up to 12.8GBps. ®