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AMD's New SledgeHammer: 64 bit chip
ChickenBomb wrote to us with word that perennial battle between Intel and AMD is continuing with AMD unveiling plans for their new 64-bit microprocessor, code-named SledgeHammer. Heck of a lot better name then Itanium, IMHO.
Intel realizes this, I think. But on the other hand, the clock is ticking on the life expectancy of _every_ 32-bit chip. If you average desktop system being sold today has 128M of memory today, and that number is doubling every 18 months, then in 4 more doubling, or 6 years, the average desktop system will have 2 gig of ram. Already it's not unusual to see large servers with 10's of gig of ram, and high-end workstations with multiple gigs of ram. Intel is the _only_ desktop & server chip manufacturer still selling only 32-bit chips.
The 386 was released in 1986 IIRC. It wasn't until 1995 that Microsoft managed to release a broadly-accepted 32-bit OS. And the situation doesn't look any better today. But Intel can't wait ten years for Microsoft to get it's act together. This explains Intel's sudden support for Linux- it's one operating system that Intel can assure itself will be running on Merced (if you want something done right...). Intel already has had experience with the GCC compiler (remember pgcc), and once GCC is ported, even Linus agrees that porting Linux is easy.
Folks seem to have the idea that companies, chip or otherwise, are somehow single-tasking entities. This couldn't be further from the truth. Most chip companies work on several projects in parallel, and if it's a competitive line such as CPUs or 3D graphics chips, these projects overlap (this has been SOP at Intel & Motorola, for example, since the 80s). AMD previously mentioned that the design team derived from the NexGen team, the folks who did the K6, are not the people behind the K7. So, presumably, they aren't sitting around playing Quake III, they're working on something new. More than likely, it's a CPU, and since these folks have proven pretty hot on architecture in the past, doing so in the present wouldn't be a surprise. As for Athlon, it's in production. Unless they do any more true versions of the chip (eg, K7-2, etc) or have major production problems, there is no chip designer work left on the Athlon project anyway. Whatever they're doing now is more than likely process tweaks, die shrinks, etc. That's different people, unless there's some redesign necessary along with a shrink -- anyway, not enough work to occupy a whole uP design team. So these guys are likely on to bigger and better things now, too.
-Dave Haynie
This is definitely a compromise solution, but it could work well for AMD. I think that Intel is underestimating the need for backward compatibility (and high performance backward compatibility). Intel is convinced that they now have the market presence required to force the move to an entirely new architecture.
The only problem is if there is an alternative, and AMD appears to be poised to offer just such an alternative.
If they can deliver on the performance end, and I think they can, they will offer a much more attractive solution to users and developers. Users won't have to upgrade apps and OS to get better performance, and it sounds like developers of high end apps might have to make only minor changes to adapt their software to use the 64 bit aspects of the chip.
AMD has essentially decided to continue in the path that Intel has followed for the last 15 years. Intel has decided to veer off that path in favor of a new architecture. AMD has decided that there might still be a few years of profitability in it, and I think that they are right.
-josh