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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paul who wrote (27081)	1/31/2000 11:44:00 PM
From: SteveC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

If true, this could create a huge window of opportunity for Sun as Intel would have wasted years of work and tens of millions of R&D. From the Register (which has an anti-Intel bias): Chipzilla's follow up to the Merced-Itanium platform, McKinley, is likely to beat its predecessor to the market, informed sources told The Register late today. McKinley is close to taping out and the IA-64 development team believes that limited clock speeds on Itanium yields have forced Intel to this conclusion. The Merced-Itanium has so far failed to achieve over 600MHz clock speeds on the part, although Intel and its partners want it to clock at at least 1GHz. Official HP charts show that they want 800MHz from Itanium-Merced before it can be a viable microprocessor for the competitive 64-bit market. In part, that is prompted by AMD's success with its 64-bit chip, codenamed Sledgehammer. McKinley, when it tapes out, will hit 1GHz "straight out of the starting gate", the source added. Taping out is chip company speak for the design being finished. That suggests silicon samples of McKinley at 1GHz may arrive as early as June. Even long-time IA64 platform partner Hewlett Packard said before Christmas, and on the record, that it was likely to be October before we saw Itanium Merced systems. Over the weekend, persistent rumours and insider emails have suggested that Intel is ramping up Willamette far faster than it originally wanted, and that competition from AMD on the Athlon has forced a re-visiting of its chip development strategies. According to these sources, Willamette did tape out only a few weeks ago. This may also explain why there is a sudden lack of ramp-up to the Coppermine platform, as Intel, normally very fast footed, reacts to market realities.