64-bit Itanium processor finally released

After 10 years of research and development and a half dozen product launch delays over the past four years, Intel and HP officially released their jointly developed 64-bit Itanium microprocessor. Intel hopes the chip will finally put the company in contention for competing in the lucrative high-end server and workstation market. The Itanium is Intel's third attempt at the server market after the earlier i960 series of server processors flopped. The company's current Xeon line of chips has done well, but the 32-bit chips are no match for the UltraSparc processors from Sun Microsystems.

The IA-64 chips will sell for between $ 1,200 and $ 4,200. Systems built around the Itanium, including those launched immediately by HP, IBM, Dell, Compaq, Silicon Graphics and many other firms, will start at about $ 7,000. The machines will be available starting mid-June. The initial Itanium chips will operate at 733MHz and 800MHz. Because they process data in chunks of 64-bits, their performance rivals that of 32-bit leading-edge PIII and P4 chips running at 1.4 to 1.7 GHz. Because it is so late to market and the lack of 64-bit software to take advantage of the 64-bit architecture, the general consensus among analysts and media is that the Itanium will not be a commercial success. 

In fact, since the next-generation IA-64 chip, developed under the code-name McKinley is on target for 2002 shipments, most customers are likely treat the Itanium as a 'beta release' for the McKinley and will wait for that chip before committing heavily to the new Intel server chips. Large customers are likely to purchase Itanium machines to evaluate their performance and then plan for larger purchases when the McKinley is released. For Intel, the Itanium launch is a critical milestone regardless of the sales of the chip. It is a necessary milestone to enter the server chip market to which the company is committed for the long term. Eventually, the 4-bit architecture will make its way down to the desktop level as well. "This launch is not just important to us, it is critical," said Paul Otellini, Executive-VP and GM, Architecture Group, Intel. 

The long delays in the release of the Itanium, originally called the Merced, were due to the enormous number of complications involved in developing completely new chip architecture. Not only did the chip have to work competitively with a number of operating system platforms, including Windows, Unix and Linux; it also had to be compatible with the billions of dollars of Windows software customers have invested in. 

Having such intimate knowledge of the Itanium development, HP expects to have a key advantage in the market for these servers. HP officials refused to
say, however, whether HP would pay less for Itanium chips or receive other benefits from the collaboration. This week's release comes as a big relief for HP, whose server strategy has suffered from the three-year delay in the availability of the chip. 

Itanium faces an uphill battle as Sun has already launched a second-generation 64-bit UltraSparc processor. Michael Lehman, CGO, Sun, downplayed the significance of the Itanium launch. "There is nothing in this announcement that anybody had not been talking about for months, if not years. There is no news here." Added Shahin Khan, VP, Sun. "Intel is in trouble. Servers are an area that they really just do not understand, and we have an absolutely unbeatable offering in the market." 

Intel started the IA-64 project in the early 1990s in alliance with HP. Intel needed a new architecture for entering the server arena and for when 32-bit technology would no longer be able to keep up with average computing demands. HP for its part was looking for a partner to develop next-generation architecture for its own server systems. The company announced back around 1998 that it had committed its future computer strategy to the combination of Windows 2000 and Itanium instead of its own Precision Architecture RISC chip server processors. 

Itanium will also get competition from AMD, which is readying its 64-bit Sledgehammer chip, which remains based on the X86 chip architecture. Helping Itanium will be the Linux software companies, including RedHat, SuSE and TurboLinux which all announced Itanium version of their Linux distributions.