Intel Reportedly Plans to Release New Itanium 2 in Days

by Anton Shilov
11/01/2004 | 09:52 PM

Intel Corp. will update its Itanium 2 family of multiprocessing units next Monday with the release of a number of new Itanium 2 processors with boosted clock-speeds and enlarged cache sizes accelerating the computing speed for high-end servers.

Intel Itanium 2 processors with Madison 9M core are designed for powerful multiprocessor servers and will be available at speeds of up to 1.70GHz with 9MB, 6MB and 4MB L3 cache. Intel also has plans to roll-out cut-down version of Madison 9M – code-named Fanwood – for dual-processor servers and workstation. Both Fanwood and Madison 9M will use 400MHz processor system bus and will be drop-in compatible with existing infrastructure, sources said. Future incarnations of Madison 9M and Fanwood will get 667MHz and 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus respectively.

The world’s largest chipmaker Intel in the past updated its Itanium 2 family with high-end SKUs in mid-year; the company also was expected to release its code-named Madison 9M products during IDF Fall 2004 in early September, 2004, but then cancelled such plans.

Early this year sources familiar with the roadmap of the world’s largest chipmaker did not reveal the exact core-clock of the forthcoming top-of-the-line chip code-named Madison 9M, restricting themselves with target core-clock range of 1.50GHz to 1.70GHz. The latter is the high-end of Intel’s expectation that reflects the company’s commitment to increasing raw computing power of the IA64 products. While after delays some may doubt Intel’s ability to commercially ship its 64-bit EPIC microprocessors in volume with large caches and high core-clock speed, since Intel’s high-end IA64 MPUs are aimed at very high-end servers, setbacks are not that crucial as on desktop or workstation markets. Numerous server companies, such as Sun Microelectronics, delayed their products for 9-12 or more months in the past and lost market share to Intel, though.

Madison 9M and Fanwood are the last two Itanium 2 SKUs made using 130nm process technology. Future Itanium products, including the dual-core processor code-named Montecito, will be made using 90nm process technology.

Representatives from Intel did not comment on the news-story.