Itanium

Itanium

The CPU family from Intel that is based on its 64-bit IA-64 architecture, which is a complete departure from the x86 CPUs used in billions of PCs and electronic devices worldwide. Itaniums run HP-UX, Linux and Windows server operating systems.

The 64-Bit Future
Itanium was developed as the 64-bit future for Intel; however, two years after the first Itanium chip was released, AMD introduced 64-bit versions of the x86 architecture, and Intel followed suit. Although the Itanium uses a more advanced architecture, as of 2011, the number of Itanium CPU chips sold worldwide is nowhere near that of 32-bit and 64-bit x86 chips from all vendors. The installed base of PC (x86) software was simply too huge by the time Itaniums were introduced, and x86 chips cost less. In 2009 and 2010 respectively, Red Hat and Microsoft announced they would not support Itanium in future releases of their operating systems. HP is the major vendor of Itanium-based servers. See x86 and Xeon.

Itaniums Support IA-64 and IA-32
Itaniums run native IA-64 applications, and they run IA-32 (x86) and HP PA-RISC applications in an emulation mode. IA-32 programs are executed directly in the Itanium's hardware layer or via a software layer in the operating system (see IA-32 Execution Layer). HP PA-RISC applications are run via a software translator (see Aries). For more on the Itanium architecture, see IA-64.

 Model          Process  Max.
           Year   Tech.  Clock
 Codename  Intro  (nm)   Speed

 Itanium (2.1 Gbps RAM bandwidth)

 Merced    2001   180  800 MHz


 Itanium 2 (6.4 Gbps RAM bandwith)

 McKinley  2002   180  1.0 GHz

 Madison   2003   130  1.6 GHz
 Deerfield 2003   130  1.0 GHz
 Hondo     2004   130  1.1 GHz
 Fanwood   2004   130  1.6 GHz
 Madison   2004   130  1.7 GHz

 Itanium 2 Dual Core

 Montecito 2006    90  1.6 GHz
 Montvale  2007    90  1.7 GHz


 Itanium 9300 Four Core

 Tukwila   2010    65  1.7 GHz