tukwila

A brief history of chip fibs, flops: Intel, IBM, AMD

Updated at 3:45 p.m. PST with correction of Motorola, IBM executives' names.

Even the biggest chip companies churn out their share of flops. But the hype that surrounds these chips is more fascinating than the failures.

It's been almost a year since I posted A brief history of chip hype--and flops (part 1). Consider this Part 2.

Itanium First, I have to revisit Intel's Itanium. Simply because it's still around and still missing production target dates.

The hype: "This design philosophy will one day replace RISC and CISC. It is a gateway into the … Read more

Intel delays 'Tukwila' server chip--again

Intel has delayed a high-end server chip, billed as the world's first 2 billion transistor microprocessor, originally expected as long ago as 2007.

Tukwila is a quad-core update to the Itanium processor, which has had a less-than-promising run since the original version was announced back in 2001. The chip's architecture--based on explicit instruction-level parallelism--is a radical departure from the x86 design used in PCs today. It was believed at one time that Itanium would replace x86 chips in many Intel-based computers.

So, what's delaying it this time? Intel has "made some engineering enhancements to the Tukwila … Read more

Intel Itanium to go quad-core in early 2009

UPDATE An alliance to promote the use of Intel's Itanium processor said a quad-core version of the chip will come out in early 2009. The alliance also disclosed more than a 30 percent jump in volume growth year to year and an update to its partnership with Microsoft, among other announcements.

Itanium is an Intel 64-bit architecture for high-end servers. It differs from the x86 architecture, widely used in PCs. One principal difference is the way the compiler is used. Because the compiler makes decisions about the parallel execution of instructions, the processor can execute up to six instructions per clock cycle.… Read more

At IDF Shanghai, Intel's vision of chips

While the marquee processor theme at IDF Shanghai is "milliwatts to petaflops," Intel is also set to offer a vision of universal connectivity.

The main theme for the event, which starts Wednesday, Beijing time, refers to "very, very big to very, very small and low power," according to Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and co-general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group, speaking in a video.

(See: Intel rolls out five new Atom processors.)

"Milliwatts" refers to chips such as Atom, a tiny low-power, low-cost processor destined for ultramobile devices and low-cost desktops typically … Read more