List of PowerPC processors

To keep costs low on high-volume competitive products, the CPU core is usually bundled into a system-on-chip (SOC) integrated circuit.

SOCs contain the processor core, cache and the processor's local data on-chip, along with clocking, timers, memory (SDRAM), peripheral (network, serial I/O), and bus (PCI, PCI-X, ROM/Flash bus, I2C) controllers.

IBM also offers an open bus architecture (called CoreConnect) to facilitate connection of the processor core to memory and peripherals in a SOC design.

IBM and Motorola have competed along parallel development lines in overlapping markets.

Some Northbridge also provide interface for Accelerated Graphics Ports (AGP) bus, Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), PCI-X, PCI Express, or Hypertransport bus.