Paul, nice article about the big guys, IBM and HP, et al, designing chipsets and laying other groundwork for Merced and McKinley.
To that end, IBM is building a core-logic chip set that will enable it to construct up to 32-way multiprocessing
systems. The set, code-named Summit, is being designed at IBM's Research Triangle Park PC operations.
It will be used in upcoming incarnations of the Netfinity server family.
I wonder why no similar announcements around Atholon. Oh, here's why:
The impetus for the effort, said IBM's Bradicich, was the need to ensure a more-robust platform that wouldn't
be subject to the crashes that are so common in desktop computing environments. "It is not possible to find
the performance, reliability and scalability [we need] in a commodity chip set," said Bradicich.
They're looking for super RAS, so they'd want to build around CPU chips from the company with the best record for compatibility, yield and reliability (add deliverability). No brainer here.
Bit of triviality here, the acronym HP is using, CEC, was used for a CPU element in an S390 machine back a couple of generations. No big, I guess.
Hewlett-Packard is also looking to break from the pack with a proprietary core-logic chip set for Merced that
supports up to 32-way multiprocessing. HP will use it as a key enabling technology for a line of high-end,
high-performance servers built around the IA-64 architecture. The chip set is code-named CEC, for core
electronics complement.
Tony |
