| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched | 2021 |
| Designed by | IBM |
| Common manufacturer | |
| Performance | |
| Max. CPU clock rate | 5.2 GHz |
| Cache | |
| L2 cache | 32 MB per core |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Technology node | 7 nm |
| Instruction set | z/Architecture |
| Physical specifications | |
| Cores |
|
| History | |
| Predecessor | z15 |
Telum is a microprocessor made by IBM for the IBM z16 series mainframe computers.[2][3] The processor was announced at the Hot Chips 2021 conference on 23 August 2021.[2] Telum is IBM's first processor that contains on-chip acceleration for artificial intelligence inferencing while a transaction is taking place.[4][5]
The chip contains 8 processor cores with a deep superscalar out-of-order pipeline, running with more than 5 GHz clock frequency which is optimized for the demands of heterogenous enterprise class workloads (e.g: Finance, Security sensitive applications, Applications requiring extreme reliability). The cache and chip-interconnection infrastructure provides 32 MB cache per core and can scale to 32 Telum chips.[6][3][7] The cache design has been described as "revolutionary" in 2021, [6] by creating a system where the L2 cache of one core can be used as virtual L3 and L4 caches for another core.[3][1] The Telum processor can either be water cooled or air cooled, but water cooling is required for running more than a few Telum processors in a single IBM compute drawer.[8][9] Unlike other processors, the IBM Telum does not thermal throttle by reducing clock speed; instead it inserts sleep state instructions.[8][9]
