Intel details upgrade to Itanium processor
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Intel on Monday is expected to detail Tukwila, its next generation of 64-bit Itanium processors that are used in enterprise servers.The new processor, due for release by the end of 2008, has a quad-core design that doubles the performance of systems with&#160;Intel&#39;s Itanium 9100 dual-core processors, said Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel.Tukwila will be detailed during a session&#160;at the International Solid State Circuits Conference&#160;in San Francisco this week.The processor will run at up to 2GHz and include the QuickPath Interconnect system architecture with an integrated memory controller for improved communication links between system components, Rattner said. The architecture, different from Intel&#39;s x86 architecture, is designed to support data-intensive applications. The processor works with Unix, Linux and Windows Server OS software.The boost in performance provided by Tukwila will be an upgrade for the set of developers writing applications for Itanium processors, which are targeted at vertical markets with data-intensive applications, like data warehousing, said Richard Doherty, director of analyst firm The Envisioneering Group.The QuickPath Interconnect architecture will also be part of Nehalem, Intel&#39;s next-generation x86 processor due out later in 2008. In the first public demonstration of the&#160;Nehalem processor&#160;at Intel Developer Forum at San Francisco last year, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said QuickPath Interconnect helps Nehalem deliver better performance-per-watt and better system performance.The Tukwila architecture will include 30MB of on-die cache, a 10 percent increase over the current Itanium. It will also include dual-integrated memory controllers, Rattner said.Tukwila is targeted at servers running enterprise applications, so the design includes an advanced RAS (reliability, availability and serviceability) feature to reduce data corruption and ensure reliable system performance, Rattner said. Advanced RAS features correct errors that may occur when data is being crunched on a processor.The system is built on a record number of transistors, Rattner said. &quot;To our knowledge, that&#39;s the first 2 billion transistor [microprocessor],&quot; he said.The Tukwila processor will be manufactured using the 65-nanometer process technology. Intel will skip the 45-nanometer process and jump to the 32-nanometer for the Tukwila processor upgrade, code-named Poulson, said Susan Tauzer, director of Itanium marketing at Intel. No release date was provided for Poulson.Intel is working closely with Microsoft, Novell/SUSE, Red Hat, Hewlett-Packard, and other key OS, system and application vendors on the delivery of Tukwila systems, Tauzer said.
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Intel Corp., the world's largest  chip maker, updated its line of Centrino notebook computer  chips on Wednesday with higher speeds and improved multimedia  features, a move the company hopes will further propel one of  its fastest-growing businesses.
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Intel will offer a first look at technical details of its low-power Silverthorne processor during a presentation at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) this week, setting the stage for a concerted push into the market for ultraportable devices.&quot;This is the&#160;first detailed technical presentation on Silverthorne,&quot; said Justin Rattner, Intel&#39;s chief technology officer and director of the company&#39;s Corporate Technology Group.Silverthorne&#160;is the first x86 chip designed by Intel specifically for small, portable computers. Until now, the company has taken older processors originally designed for notebooks and adapted them for use in portable devices. For example, Intel&#39;s existing A100 and A110 processors designed for these devices are based on the Celeron M chip.Intel&#39;s ISSCC presentation on Silverthorne was anticipated. The conference program contained a presentation abstract that described an unnamed 45-nanometer, low-power Intel processor designed for mobile Internet devices. That description is the same that Intel used to describe Silverthorne, although the company earlier declined to confirm or deny if the chip was in fact Silverthorne.Unlike other processors in Intel&#39;s current product line, Silverthorne uses an in-order processor design, akin to a factory with a single assembly line capable of processing one operation at a time. The chip is the first in-order processor released by Intel since it began shipping the Pentium Pro in 1995. Other Intel processors use an out-of-order design.Out-of-order chips work like a factory with multiple assembly lines. They can process several operations at the same time and generally offer better performance than in-order processors. Silverthorne will make up some of this difference by using Hyperthreading, a technology that allows the processor to work on two instruction threads at the same time.Using an in-order design for Silverthorne struck the best balance between performance and power efficiency, Intel said. But don&#39;t expect Silverthorne to match the performance available from Intel&#39;s mobile Core 2 processors, even though Silverthorne consumes less power. The performance of the new chips will be roughly equivalent to the Pentium M processors found in the first version of Centrino, released in 2003, Rattner said.Intel declined to comment on what clock speed Silverthorne will run at or how much power it will consume when it hits the market in the coming months. But the ISSCC program abstract said the chip will have 512KB of cache and use a 533MHz front-side bus.Observers had expected Intel to offer dual-core and single-core versions of Silverthorne, but Rattner said Silverthorne will have one core.Over the life of the Silverthorne processor, Intel expects to make a 2GHz chip available and plans to offer a version that consumes 1 watt, Intel said, suggesting these will not be features of the processors set for release in the months ahead.When Silverthorne hits the market, it could face competition from Via Technologies&#39; Isaiah processor, a low-power chip that is set for release at around the same time and is designed for the same portable devices makers that are Silverthorne&#39;s target market. Isaiah processors use an out-of-order design, a faster front-side bus, a twice as much cache, which could give the chips an edge over Silverthorne. But an accurate comparison of the two chips won&#39;t be possible until they are released and can be benchmarked by independent observers.Even if Isaiah outperforms Silverthorne, Via must still compete with Intel for orders and that may prove difficult.Via is tiny by comparison to Intel and cannot offer the same level of support to its customers in terms of marketing muscle. Via will also need to keep Isaiah&#39;s price relatively low to be competitive with Silverthorne, which is the smallest chip produced by Intel over the last 15 years or so.&quot;The 486 was a bit smaller,&quot; Rattner said.The small size of Silverthorne means Intel can produce 2,500 chips on a single 300-millimeter silicon wafer. That keeps unit production costs low and will allow Intel to sell Silverthorne at a relatively low price, as well. It also means Intel can produce Silverthorne without diverting too many manufacturing resources from its flagship Core 2 and Xeon products.&#160;
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New features of the processor include better security, management and energy savings.
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Intel Corp.  is set to  introduce on Tuesday a long-delayed chip model on Tuesday  code-named Montecito that is the first in it Itanium chip line  to have the equivalent of two electronic brains on a single  piece of silicon, the Wall Street Journal said on its Web site  on Monday.
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Intel&#39;s biggest customer for its Itanium processor is to stop building workstations built around the chip according to the online edition of the Wall Street Journal.
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(InfoWorld) - Oracle will soon begin certification of its database software to run on Itanium 2 computing processor platforms. Oracle joined with officials of the Itanium Solutions Alliance (ISA) in making the announcement Monday at the first ever Itanium Solutions Summit in San Francisco. The move is a further endorsement by Oracle of the beleaguered Itanium processor family which has been slow to gain traction in the server marketplace, though it hasÂ shown some recent momentum. "This seems like an 'attaboy' announcement," said industry analyst Charles King. The Itanium microprocessor family was developed by Intel, of Santa Clara, California, and Hewlett-Packard, of Palo Alto, California, but even with the backing of these tech industry giants, relatively few software programs were initially available to run on Itanium. In announcing Oracle's support, Alliance members said Monday there are now 10,000 software applications from 2,000 independent software vendors certified on the Itanium 2 dual-core processor, code-named "Montecito," the latest iteration of Itanium introduced this summer. When ISA was founded in September 2005, it counted only 5,000 Itanium-compatible applications. Oracle, of Redwood Shores, California, is "reiterating" its support of Itanium with Monday's announcement, said Oracle spokesman Eloy Ontiveros, planning to certify the next major releases of its Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware products across various operating systems. Oracle's decision is "in keeping with our longstanding tradition of presenting customers with many choices in deployment platforms," said Prem Kumar, vice president of the Oracle's Server Technologies division. Of Oracle's support of Itanium, industry analyst Joe Clabby said, "They kind of have to." Oracle is one of the largest of HP's technology partners and HP is the biggest supporter of Itanium, said Clabby, president of Clabby Analytics of Yarmouth, Maine, citing industry reports that as many as 80 percent of the Itanium servers on the market are HP-branded servers. Oracle has made several announcements in recent years about software applications that run on Itanium-powered servers and this is just the latest effort to promote Itanium, said King, president of Pund-IT Research, of Hayward, California. "Now that Montecito has hit the market, Itanium is gaining success among HP users," King said. But he still doesn't see Itanium taking business from its main processor competitors, the Power architecture from IBM Corp., of Armonk, New York, or the Sparc from Sun Microsystems, of Santa Clara, California. However, ISA cited IDC Research data showing Itanium building momentum. Sales of Itanium-based systems generated $740 million in revenue in the second quarter, up 36.4 percent from the year ago quarter. IDC reported in February that the market for Itanium servers may reach $6.6 billion by 2009, up from $2.4 billion in 2005. Other server makers supporting Itanium 2 include Unisys, of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, FujitsuÂ of Japan, and Silicon Graphics, of Mountain View, California.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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roundup The firm makes over its Pentium 4 Extreme Edition and gets ready to unveil a new top-of-the-line Itanium 2 for servers.
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Intel has introduced a third-generation Itanium 2 into the market, but Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has noted that its Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition will not run on servers with the chip.
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Intel Corp., the world's largest chip maker, updated its line of Centrino notebook computer chips on Wednesday with higher speeds and improved multimedia features, a move the company hopes will further propel one of its fastest-growing businesses.
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Intel today announced a faster Pentium 4 of its high-end Extreme Edition (EE) series as well as an updated PCI Express chipset now supporting FSB1066.
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Intel today announced additions to its Celeron D entry level processor family. The new chips come with LGA775 packaging known from 90 nm Prescott Pentium
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Competitively priced, too Intel has followed the launch of its first mobile Core 2 Extreme processor with a handful of desktop CPUs that support the chip giant's 1333MHz frontside bus upgrade.â¦
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In a rare admission, an Intel executive says the Itanium chip family still isn't living up to
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17 December 2004 Computer giant Hewlett-Packard and processor maker Intel have ended their costly 10 year partnership to develop Itanium chips for server computers, following lacklustre sales.
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Blog: Everyone's favorite whipping boy, Intel's Itanium server processor, is still on the road map well into the next decade.
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The world's largest chipmaker plans to present technical papers on two of its more interesting designs, the low-power Silverthorne chip and a quad-core Itanium processor, during the ISSCC conference this week.