Intel Itanium

Itanium 2 processor, 2003
Produced:	From mid 2001 to present
Max CPU clock:	733 MHz to 1.66 GHz
FSB speeds:	300 MHz to 667 MHz
Instruction set:	Itanium
Cores:	1 or 2
Socket:	PAC611
Core names: McKinley Madison Hondo Deerfield Montecito Montvale

Itanium is the brand name for 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). Intel has released two processor families using the brand: the original Itanium and the Itanium 2. Starting November 1, 2007, new members of the second family are again called Itanium. The processors are marketed for use in enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems. The architecture originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP) and was later developed by HP and Intel together.

Itanium's architecture differs dramatically from the x86 architectures (and the x86-64 extensions) used in other Intel processors. The architecture is based on explicit instruction-level parallelism, with the compiler making the decisions about which instructions to execute in parallel. This approach allows the processor to execute up to six instructions per clock cycle. By contrast with other superscalar architectures, Itanium does not have elaborate hardware to keep track of instruction dependencies during parallel execution - the compiler must keep track of these at build time instead.
After a protracted development process, the first Itanium was released in 2001, and more powerful Itanium processors have been released periodically. HP produces most Itanium-based systems, but several other manufacturers have also developed systems based on Itanium. As of 2007, Itanium is the fourth-most deployed microprocessor architecture for enterprise-class systems, behind x86-64, IBM POWER, and SPARC. Intel released its newest Itanium, codenamed Montvale, in November 2007.^[1]

• 1 History
  • 1.1 Development: 1989–2001
  • 1.2 Original Itanium processor: 2001–02
  • 1.3 Itanium 2 processors: 2002–present

Timeline

• 1989:

  • HP begins investigating EPIC^[4]
  
  
  
• 1994:

  • June: HP and Intel announce partnership^[45]
  
  
  
• 1995:

  • September: HP, Novell, and SCO announce plans for a "high volume UNIX operating system" to deliver "64-bit networked computing on the HP/Intel architecture"^[46]
  
  
  
• 1996:

  • October: Compaq announces it will use IA-64^[47]
  
  
  
• 1997:

  • June: IDC predicts IA-64 systems sales will reach $38bn/yr by 2001^[2]
  • October: Dell announces it will use IA-64^[48]
  • December: Intel and Sun announce joint effort to port Solaris to IA-64^[6]
  
  
  
• 1998:

  • March: SCO admits HP/SCO Unix alliance is now dead
  • June: IDC predicts IA-64 systems sales will reach $30bn/yr by 2001^[2]
  • June: Intel announces Merced will be delayed, from second half of 1999 to first half of 2000^[49]
  • September: IBM announces it will build Merced-based machines^[50]
  • October: Project Monterey is formed to create a common UNIX for IA-64
  
  
  
• 1999:

  • February: Project Trillian is formed to port Linux to IA-64
  • August: IDC predicts IA-64 systems sales will reach $25bn/yr by 2002^[2]
  • October: Intel Announces the Itanium name
  • October: the term Itanic is first used
  
  
  
• 2000:

  • February: Project Trillian delivers source code
  • June: IDC predicts Itanium systems sales will reach $25bn/yr by 2003^[2]
  • July: Sun and Intel drop Solaris-on-Itanium plans^[51]
  • August: AMD releases specification for x86-64,
    a set of 64-bit extensions to Intel's own x86 architecture intended to
    compete with IA-64. It will eventually market this under the name
    "AMD64"
  
  
  
• 2001:

  • June: IDC predicts Itanium systems sales will reach $15bn/yr by 2004^[2]
  • June: Project Monterey dies
  • July: Itanium is released
  • October: IDC predicts Itanium systems sales will reach $12bn/yr by the end of 2004^[2]
  • November: IBM's 320-processor Titan NOW Cluster at National Center for Supercomputing Applications is listed on the TOP500 list at position #34^[15]
  • November: Compaq delays Itanium Product release due to problems with processor^[52]
  • December: Gelato is formed
  
  
  
• 2002:

  • March: IDC predicts Itanium systems sales will reach $5bn/yr by end 2004^[2]
  • June:Itanium 2 is released
  
  
  
• 2003:

  • April: IDC predicts Itanium systems sales will reach $9bn/yr by end 2007^[2]
  • April: AMD releases Opteron, the first processor with x86-64 extensions
  • June: Intel releases the "Madison" Itanium 2
  
  
  
• 2004:

  • February: Intel announces it has been working on its own x86-64
    implementation (which it will eventually market under the name "Intel
    64")
  • June: Intel releases its first processor with x86-64 extensions, a Xeon
    processor codenamed "Nocona"
  • June: Thunder, a system at LLNL with 4096 Itanium 2 processors, is listed on the TOP500 list at position #2^[53]
  • November: Columbia, an SGIAltix 3700 with 10160 Itanium 2 processors at NASA Ames Research Center, is listed on the TOP500 list at position #2.^[54]
  • December: Itanium system sales for 2004 reach $1.4bn
  
  
  
• 2005:

  • January: HP ports OpenVMS to Itanium^[55]
  • February: IBM server design drops Itanium support^[56][32]
  • June: An Itanium 2 sets a record SPECfp2000 result of 2,801^[57] in a Hitachi, Ltd.Computing blade.
  • September: Itanium Solutions Alliance is formed^[58]
  • September: Dell exits the Itanium business^[59]
  • October: Itanium server sales reach $619M/quarter in the third quarter.
  • October: Intel announces one-year delays for Montecito, Montvale, and Tukwila^[19]
  
  
  
• 2006:

  • January: Itanium Solutions Alliance announces a $10bn collective investment in Itanium by 2010
  • February: IDC predicts Itanium systems sales will reach $6.6bn/yr by 2009^[3][60][61]
  • June: Intel releases the dual-core "Montecito" Itanium 2^[62]
  
  
  
• 2007:
  
  • October: Intel releases the "Montvale" Itanium 2
  • November: Intel renames the family back to Itanium.