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From...
Behind the Merced mystique
July 15, 1998
Web posted at: 1:40 PM EDT
by Kim S. Nash
(IDG) -- Pluck a hair from your head. Imagine slicing it lengthwise into 555 strands. Each would be 0.18 microns thick, the same thickness as a wire destined for Intel Corp.'s new Merced chip.
In fact, they aren't even called wires - traces is the term, and you need an electron beam to arrange them in the specific, and so far secret, layout that will become a Merced microprocessor.
Merced is the code name for the first chip to be built from a new 64-bit microprocessor design, dubbed IA-64, created by Intel and Hewlett-Packard Co.
Although Intel expects big things from this incredibly small technology - including fat profits - Merced-based servers won't be for everyone or every application.
Merced and 64-bit computing are "a natural extension of our product line," says Ron Curry, director of microprocessor marketing at Intel. Yet, he adds, "We have no delusion this [migration] will happen instantly."
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Historically, wide-scale movement to new architectures has taken at least three or four years. Save for some early adopters, most corporate users aren't expected to buy in to Merced and its IA-64 architecture until 2003.
Close-mouthed about their plans for a next-generation processor since they announced a partnership in 1994, Intel and HP only late last year described their work.
And they still won't talk about key details, such as speed and performance.
What we do know is this: The IA-64 chips will incorporate a joint Intel/HP design called EPIC, or Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing. First there was CISC, then RISC, now EPIC, the vendors are fond of saying.
EPIC chips perform tasks in parallel, instead of sequentially, which will make them at least twice as fast as today's CISC and RISC chips, analysts say. The minute distance between traces will also speed processing. (By contrast, HP's PA-RISC traces are 0.5 microns.)
Conceptually, EPIC chips, of which Merced will be the first, will be split into three parts. One section goes to CISC processing, another to RISC, and a third to EPIC.
In theory, putting all three architectures on one chip means existing applications will still run on servers based on the new chip. But unless software is tweaked to take advantage of parallelism, users won't see any faster or better processing.
A cooling unit, cache and other subcomponents will be packaged with the Merced chip in a plastic cartridge about the size of a paperback book, says Dean McCarron, an analyst at Mercury Research, Inc. in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The box will have a connector hanging off it for hardware makers to plug in to motherboards. The whole package will be about double the size of a Pentium II package, McCarron says. HP and Intel both worked on the architecture, but Intel will be the sole maker of chips based on it.
Delayed start
But Merced chips won't ship in volume to hardware makers until mid-2000 - six months later than planned. For information systems managers, many of whom haven't thought much about how to fit Merced into their technology plans, the delay means little. Semiconductor analysts shrug it off as a blip in what will be a 15-year product cycle.
After hardware vendors get the chips, IS shops must wait another three to six months for servers based on Merced. Merced recently entered a final phase of design: logic and timing convergence. There, the chip is laid out, and engineers test to ensure that it's structured so that the thousands of functions each piece performs are coordinated.
Intel is certainly late to 64-bit computing. Digital Equipment Corp., for example, first shipped its 64-bit Alpha systems in 1993. The Alpha processor has been popular but, with 5.9% of the servers and workstation market, it hasn't overwhelmed the market at large.
But what has chip experts jazzed about Merced is the promise of high-volume manufacturing, which Intel has perfected in the 32-bit realm, a.k.a. today's Pentium processors.
The lessons Intel learned with Pentium will help it make large quantities of 64-bit processors very efficiently. That will push down the cost of the high-performance chips and, in turn, the big-daddy servers that use them, analysts predict.
And, the logic goes, users who once shunned 64-bit servers because of high prices will now buy them. Plus, Intel's timing is good. More users now have giant applications that can benefit from 64-bit, parallel processing, such as huge data warehouses and high-traffic Internet sites.
Eventually, Intel will filter 64-bit processors down to desktop computers, but not for at least four or five years after Merced comes out, Intel Chairman Andy Grove has said.
For Intel, Merced and its follow-ons mark the vendor's entry into very high-end corporate computing, where profit margins are fatter.
"No one knows for sure, but Merced will probably go for $2,000 to $6,000 per processor," McCarron predicts.
Compared with the $161 to $824 Intel gets for each Pentium, that's nice money. "They want to moderate the fact that we've seen a shift toward cheaper processors and $1,000 PCs," he says.
Curry declined to comment on prices. As with today's 64-bit systems, complete Merced-based servers are likely to start at $10,000 and reach beyond several hundred thousand dollars, McCarron says. But unlike existing hardware, most Merced servers will remain priced in the low end, he says.
That range "is accurate," says Jim Carlson, marketing manager for HP's IA-64 systems.
Almost all operating system vendors and many major software companies have pledged to support Merced.
HP, of course, is working on a Merced version of HP-UX.
HP influence
Although HP won't get first dibs on Merced chips, it influenced the architecture so that the transition from PA-RISC systems to EPIC systems will be "more transparent" for HP users than for users of other hardware, Curry acknowledges.
Elsewhere, Sun Microsystems, Inc. in Mountain View, Calif., says it will port Solaris. Digital, now a unit of Houston-based Compaq Computer Corp., will work with Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. in Beaverton, Ore., to devise a Unix port of its own.
Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash., has promised that a 64-bit version of Windows NT will be ready when the first Merced-based servers ship.
So far, only the HP/SCO product and Windows NT are already running on a Merced simulator at Intel, Curry says. But what will make or break Merced is the support of key applications vendors. PeopleSoft, Inc. in Pleasanton, Calif., and SAP AG say they will have Merced versions of their client/server financial applications ready when the servers ship.
Oracle Corp. in Redwood City, Calif., and Sybase, Inc. in Emeryville, Calif., plan to port their databases.
Open Market, Inc. in Burlington, Mass., announced last month that Intel invested $5.7 million in the company; Open Market agreed to build a version of its Transact electronic commerce software for Merced.