Michael, re: Merced
PC Week had a huge article this week, "Intel & HP: Strange Bedfellows" -- in which they explained the Merced mess. Here's how it starts:
Two years ago, engineers at Hewlett-Packard Co.'s development labs came to a painful conclusion: The 64-bit Merced chip HP was developing
with Intel Corp. would not be powerful enough to surpass HP's existing PA-RISC architecture.
So, HP set out--on its own--to design a new processor based on the same underpinnings as Merced but with a different system I/O and bus implementation as well as other capabilities.
Turns out this new HP design is called the McKinley. To my knowledge, Intel has never acknowledged that the superior McKinley design is, in fact, an HP design.
Just as HP couldn't comment on Merced, it could not publicly discuss the new chip, even though it was being developed largely at the HP Labs facility in Fort Collins, Colo., with Intel engineers on site, according to sources.
"Intel wants to pretend [it's] designing the chips alone," MicroDesign's Gwennap said. Intel provided the first technical briefings on McKinley early last month and disclosed further details of the chip later in the month at the Microprocessor Forum. When asked then about HP's involvement, Intel declined to discuss the company; it continues to downplay HP's involvement with McKinley.
Petz |
