Interesting. But how "new" is this, really?
Did PA Semi not get a license?
Do AMCC not license it?
Did Xilinx not license it?
Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft?
I'm not sure how this new thing differs from the old thing.
This differs from the "old thing" in a few ways.
The first lot got architecture licenses - they had to then design their own implementation from the ground up and source manufacturing, then go through all of the pain & expense of bringing a design to fabrication.
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft paid IBM to design an implementation for them - or actually to customise one they already had in some cases and then fabricate it for them.
This will be the first time that IBM license the design of an actual implementation that can then be further customised by the licensee and fabricated wherever they then like. That means with whatever GPU they like, bus, cache sizes etc. All built atop of a design that's already known good and can be implemented at less cost.
It's one of the big differences between things like ARM and traditional CPUs and is credited with being one of the reasons that ARM have had such success compared to them. They're much more flexible than the traditional chip houses that seem to want to decide how, when and why you get to use their designs. ARM will let you do pretty much whatever you like.
I doubt IBM will go the whole hog and only start charging you for the chips you actually make like ARM do, but you never know.
