Stockman, Re: "MERCED simulation demo at CeBIT -- This stuff is close. Also there is silicon at .13u!!!!!!!"
Thanks for the article. There are a lot of lot of lot of people waiting for Merced.
I had lunch with a guy today that works at HP and worked on Merced. He said HP's part is done. Just to validate some of the things he talked about, I think it's appropriate to note some of his impressive resume. He is a computer architect and designer and has been at HP, I'm guessing, about seven years. I think he was hired to go right to work on Merced. The timing here is about right, as I think Merced kicked off, development-wise, about 1991. For about the same length of time before that, he worked at another computer company with which I am familiar, starts with A but it's not AMD (AMD is not a computer company anyway.). Before that, I think he was at IBM. I asked him how Intel engineers and architects were to work with. He said, technically, fine. I've been saying Merced, architecturally, is a mainframe on a chip. This is just another indicator (the fact that mainframe guys are being hired by HP to work on it. I'm sure Intel has been doing the same).
I asked him how it looks for Merced production in 1999. He kind of hedged, didn't say the project was ahead, or behind or right on. On something this complex, his is the right answer, and I'd say the same thing. Also, it's all in Intel's hands now. However, if it were significantly behind, I think he would have said something. I didn't ask about simulated performance, because the lunch was really a get-together, or re-union of a bunch of old CPU designers that worked together in the past, and technical talk fades away in favor of reminiscences and food talk.
Tony |
