Michael and all:
I didn't see this until today but for those who are interested in what Intel is about to spring on a seemingly unsuspecting world read this.
techweb.com
March 18, 1996, Issue: 675
Section: Emerging Technologies
HEIR TO PENTIUM'S THRONE -- Fate of P7 stirs
debate
By ALBERT PANG
San Mateo, Calif.
While unclear exactly what power it will hold, already the impact of Intel
Corp.'s next-generation PC microprocessor, sometimes called P7, is
reverberating throughout the computer industry.
While the introduction of the P7 (now referred to as Merced) being
co-developed by Inteland Hewlett-Packard Co. is at least a year away,
speculation abounds on just what this new architecture will do.
Merced is expected to be released in late 1997 and volume production
probably will not kick in until 1998. However, industry experts already
are furiously debating the impact Merced could have on competing chip
vendors, especially the RISC camp.
"The RISC vendors have to clean up their act to catch up with Intel,'' said
Martin Reynolds, an analyst with Dataquest Inc.
After years of trailing the RISC camp in terms of raw chip performance,
the Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel has defied the concept that it could
only build chips for the masses, but not for high-end workstation and
server applications. Last November's debut of the Pentium Pro changed
that.
"Intel has surprised everybody with the performance of the Pentium Pro.
Peddling RISC is going to be tough," said James MacHale, product
marketing manager of Mips Technologies Inc., Mountain View, Calif.,
one of the largest RISC vendors.
Not only will the challenge from Merced make the lives much tougher for
RISC leaders Mips Computer Systems Inc., the PowerPC alliance, Sun
Microelectronics Inc. and Digital Equipment Corp., analysts said it also
will question how much life is left for the RISC architecture.
The threat is clear and imminent. Though Intel and HP, Palo Alto, Calif.,
remain mum about the details of Merced, executives insist that it will be
an entirely new architecture, capable of delivering a significant
performance boost over the Pentium Pro.
David House, Intel's senior vice president, said Merced will go beyond
the RISC and the Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) architectures.
VLIW, which was considered a viable alternative to RISC 10 years ago,
never caught on because of difficulties in writing sequences of code to
match the compiler in a methodology called internal parallelism.
However, some experts believe that Merced will bear some resemblance
to the RISC and VLIW architectures. "If you look at P6 [the intermediary
between Pentium and the P7], it's a RISC-translated back-and-front
pipeline. These are the design techniques everyone is using," said Andrew
Allison, an industry consultant and editor of Inside the New Computer
Industry.
Already, companies such as Sun Microelectronics, Mountain View, Calif.,
have used pieces of VLIW to improve the UltraSparc microprocessor.
"VLIW is fundamentally a compiler technique. Our compiler technique is
similar in that it will do global co-motion and optimization to make the chip
run faster,'' said Peter von Clemm, marketing manager at Sun
Microelectronics.
In any case, a source at HP said the Merced project has made some
tangible progress. One sign is that it already is in chip implementation
stage. That means Intel could start sampling chips soon. Another HP
source said a task force has been set up to begin promoting in the spring
of 1997 the use of Merced-both at the application and board
levels-among independent hardware and software vendors.
By that time, Summit 3D, the next-generation 64-bit Unix operating
system from HP and Santa Cruz Operation, is expected to hit the market.
The availability of a 64-bit Unix OS is important for the 64-bit Merced
because Microsoft Corp., Redmond, will not be able to deliver a 64-bit
OS in time. "[SCO] will have a product, but I'm not as confident that
[Microsoft] will meet the schedule,'' House said. Added Michael Slater,
publisher of Microprocessor Report: "Microsoft is not going to have a
64-bit OS in this decade."
In addition to lining up a 64-bit OS, Intel and HP have been holding talks
with server and workstation vendors around the world to secure their
support for Merced, sources said.
These vendors, some of whom have been RISC shops only, are now
tempted to adopt the Intel platform. "There is an increasing commitment to
the Intel architecture [at our company]," said Yukoku Suzuki, general
manager of scalable server division at HAL in Campbell, Calif. HAL, a
subsidiary of Fujitsu Ltd., which has been using RISC chips from Mips
Technologies for years, is planning to ship a line of Pentium Pro-based
servers next year, he said.
Another big RISC vendor, Tandem Computer Inc., Cupertino, Calif., is
expected to offer Intel-based servers this year because of their growing
use in the Windows NT environment. "We're seriously looking at Intel
chips to progress our NT business," said Chris Rooke, director of
product marketing at Tandem.
Both cases illustrate that the RISC camp is under fire. "It's very painful for
RISC, but I do think much of the RISC business will go to Pentium
processor," said Michael Slater of Microprocessor Report.
A spokesman for Mips Computer said sales remain strong for its chips.
This year it expects its foundries to ship 10 million chips, up from 5.5
million in 1995. Computer systems accounted for 15 percent of that
volume, while consumer devices and embedded products made up the
rest.
"You will continue to see a healthy RISC market for 10 years,'' said Bill
Jackson, manager of marketing development for RISC products at
Toshiba, one of the foundries for the company.
Mips Computer is working on a new class of chips called H1, which is
slated for release in late 1997, MacHale said.
RISC vendors are quick to refute that their architecture is running out of
steam, stressing that probably will not happen for another 10 to 15 years.
Aaron Bauch, strategic marketing manager of Alpha at Digital
Semiconductor, Hudson, Mass., the chip subsidiary of Digital Equipment,
said the company expects to boost the performance of Alpha chip to
500MHz by year-end.
"Our strategy over the next year is to drive more and more into the
mainstream, instead of having our share eaten away," Bauch said, adding
that the market will see a slew of Alpha-based workstations priced
between $2,500 and $4,000 to compete with Intel-based PCs.
Others said a shakeout is inevitable. Von Clemm of Sun Microelectronics
said he expects to see no more than two RISC architectures to survive in
the next few years. "There's going to be a consolidation of RISC,'' he
said.
Part of the reason is the high cost of developing a new architecture.
Richard Watts, vice president and general manager of HP's computer
systems organization, estimates that it takes about $2 billion to do that-$1
billion for research and development and the other $1 billion for building
the fabrication plant.
Some said that's a scare tactic. "It's in the interests of HP and Intel to say
that no one else has the resources to get into the game,'' said consultant
Allison.
Analysts estimated that it took Sun Microelectronics no more than $100
million to build its new UltraSparc chip and the figure seems to apply to
most new microprocessor developments.
Still, the cost is steep and most RISC vendors have to strike alliances with
partners to foot the bill. Sun Microelectronics, for instance, is seeking to
make a deal with Fujitsu to build and further expand the UltraSparc
architecture.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looks like 1998 is the start of something big. In 1998, today's price will look like the
bargain basement at swap meet.
Barry
|
