IBM's Dual-ISA Processors Support Both Z and Arm Instruction Sets

IBM has taken an interesting step in the tech world by introducing a new generation of processors for its Z Series mainframes that support two instruction sets at once: its own original instruction set and the 64-bit Arm instruction set. This means that users can run server applications on Linux without needing to modify their software.

The processor, which is manufactured using a 2nm process, contains 11 cores and has a clock speed of 5.7 GHz or higher. It also features native support for the Armv9.3 version, including SVE and SVE2 instructions. The core has 239 physical registers for these instructions.

The processor will be used to run Linux applications on the Z Series mainframes, which are designed for highly demanding mission-critical applications. IBM claims that its processors have a 99.999999% availability, making them suitable for applications that require high uptime.

It's worth noting that this is not a replacement for IBM's Power processors, but rather a separate platform that supports both the Z and Arm instruction sets. The processor makes various specialized accelerators available to software running in Arm mode, including cryptography acceleration and AI acceleration units.