Intel Finally Ships Quad-Core Itanium

Intel has finally shipped "Tukwila," the long-delayed quad-core Itanium processor that has been pushed back by more than three years, resulting in a chip that's an odd mish-mash of old and new technologies.

Designed for the largest, most mission-critical enterprise servers, Tukwila replaces the Itanium 9100 dual-core processor, codenamed Montecito, which first shipped in 2006. Tukwila is a huge chip, with more than 2 billion transistors. However, it's made using the ancient (in tech terms) 65-nanometer process. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) abandoned that for 45nm engineering in 2008 and is now scaling down to 32nm.

Yet at the same time, Tukwila has new technologies like the updated Hyper-Threading and QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) bus found in the new Nehalem generation of server and desktop processors.

Had Tukwila shipped when it was supposed to, it would have been the first Intel processor with QPI, not the last, notes Nathan Brookwood, research fellow with Insight 64. He thinks the three-year delay won't hurt this chip, which has a specific market, unlike a mass-market chip.

"It would have been better to get it out there three years ago, but this is a market that moves at glacial speed," Brockwood told InternetNews.com. "At least Intel did get it out there," he said, in reference to Sun Microsystems' oft-delayed and ultimately cancelled "Rock" processor.

"With Intel, it was more a matter of getting it right," he said. "At the last minute last year they discovered they didn't have it right on some database apps, so they went back and did some tweaking. Better to do your tweaking before than after."

Intel has delayed the chip for a variety of reasons, including the database support issues Brookwood mentioned, as well as a desire to support DDR3 memory. Tukwila's successor will be Poulson, which will be made with the 32nm process in use today, followed by Kittson. Intel has not said when those two chips will ship.

Itanium is a processor born from a joint venture between Intel that initially included several server giants, including Sun and IBM (NYSE: IBM). Both dropped out to focus on their own chips, leaving Intel with HP, which has contributed its own processor technology, PA-RISC, to Itanium. HP's high-end servers, like the NonStop and Superdome servers, run Itanium to compete with IBM Power and mainframe systems.

With IBM getting close to releasing its new Power 7 processor, Intel needed to get this processor out, Brookwood said. "I think it's a good thing they do have Tukwila. This will allow HP to remain in the game. It provides a dramatic improvement in performance over Montecito and will be welcomed by customers using Itanium or PA-RISC and looking for an upgrade path," he said.

In the end, Tukwila's biggest competitor may be from Intel itself. The Nehalem-EX, an eight-core processor, is due later this year and will allow x86 servers to compete with high-end RISC and mainframe systems.

Intel had big plans for Itanium that fell somewhat short. IBM and other competitors have jokingly dubbed the processor the "Itanic," in reference to the ill-fated cruise ship. Brookwood bought the domain name itanic.com to spare Intel the insult of someone setting up a site to ridicule the processor.

"I knew it would become a joke. I didn't want it to become a joke at Intel's expense so I just kept it off the market," he said. "Who knows, some day it might become a valuable property."

Andy Patrizio is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.