The Mystery of the Missing Processor.
The world's largest chipmakers touted their most powerful processors at an industry gathering in San Francisco this week, but perhaps just as noteworthy was a high-profile no-show.
Following presentations featuring IBM's upcoming 1.1GHz Power4 and Compaq's future 1.2GHz Alpha, a conference guide indicated that Intel would discuss its follow-up product to Itanium, a 64bit processor codenamed McKinley.
But Intel pulled its presentation.
The move fuelled speculation that the chip, scheduled to be released in pilot systems later this year, may endure delays like the yet-unreleased Itanium, which was supposed to be launched last year.
"Basically, after reviewing what was submitted to the conference, we just thought it was too early in the ball game to release that sort of architectural information," said an Intel spokeswoman.
But even apart from that withdrawal from the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, there are other indications that the processor may be running behind schedule.
"I think the big issue is that the chip still hasn't taped out yet," said processor analyst Linley Gwennap, of the Linley Group, referring to the processor's design not being sent off for manufacturing, as was expected late last year. "That's a big milestone for any particular processor."
Intel has a lot riding on its 64bit - or IA-64 - processors. In particular, the company hopes to use its IA-64 chips to break into the high-end server market currently dominated by RISC-based processors produced by Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
While the 800MHz Itanium will be the first available IA-64 chip, set for release this quarter, many industry observers view it only as a software development platform. The 1.2GHz McKinley, by contrast, is expected to perform twice as fast on some applications as Itanium and is seen as Intel's first truly competitive product for the high-end server market.
Intel's IA-64 program, begun in 1994, but has been plagued by numerous delays.
