Intel didn't say anything at all publicly about Merced till late '97, when it officially became IA-64 with a lot of additional PR fog.. So what? This whole "tape out" thing is something you made up, anyway. None of the quoted articles say anything about "taping out". Premiere, debut, appear, scheduled, those are odd synonyms for "taping out".
"Merced was originally scheduled for '97"
" The 64-bit chip from Intel and HP, known as P7, has been renamed the Merced chip. Contrary to Intel reports that
the chip would premiere in 1997, it has been pushed back to begin shipping late 1998. "
"Last year, Intel formed a much talked-about partnership with Hewlett-Packard to design a new
microprocessor that is expected to appear in 1997 or 1998."
" Down the road, the company not only has its next generation of processor under development, but has set a
tentative release date of late 1997 or early 1998." |
