IBM Power6 CPU clocked at 5GHz coming by mid-2007

IBM announced this week that it has developed new manufacturing methods that will allow its upcoming Power6 processor to run twice as fast as the current Power5 CPU. Big Blue says the Power6 will arrive in mid-2007 at clockspeeds of 4 to 5GHz.

The company didn't just decrease the transistor size to 65nm, they also developed a process to alter the way how silicon behaves by placing a layer of insulator underneath a layer of silicon less than 500 atoms thick.

"You literally can squeeze silicon, and thereby give it properties to make it faster. The thing that is making it run faster is not just that it's smaller but because you're changing its basic physical properties," Meyerson told Reuters.

More details about the Power6 over at CNN.