Later deze maand op het Intel Developer Forum zal de chipgigant in het openbaar het gebruik van SDRAM aannbevelen met haar Pentium 4 processor. RDRAM blijft de eerste keus maar is volgens Intel de eerst komende 2 jaar vanwege de prijs niet geschikt voor de consumentenmarkt:
Something you wouldn't expect to hear at the Intel Developer Forum later this month but will: Intel executives recommending single-data-rate SDRAMs for the company's next-generation IA-32 and IA-64 processors.
At the same time, double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAMs will get scant notice at the IDF, scheduled for Aug. 22-24 in San Jose. Instead, Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., will showcase its broad push into the networking and telecommunications markets, while the company's traditional processor and memory road maps will be scoured closely for clues to Intel's shifting business strategies.
Pat Gelsinger, vice president and chief technology officer of the Intel Architecture Business Unit, said in a pre-IDF briefing last week that SDRAM will play a role in the upcoming Pentium 4 in what he defined as “price point” markets.
Gelsinger reiterated Intel's position that Direct Rambus DRAM is still the company's preferred memory for the Pentium 4-which sources said will debut later this year as a high-end Direct RDRAM-only CPU for workstations and top-of-the-line PCs. A version for the midrange market that will include support for SDRAM is expected to follow in 2001, according to industry sources familiar with Intel's processor road map. [break]Tijdens het IDF zal verder veel aandacht geschonken worden aan de 64-bit Itanium processor voor de server markt die volgens insiders al eind 2001 vervangen zal worden door de 64-bit McKinley. De Itanium zal net als de P4 geen gebruik maken van RDRAM maar ook gebruik blijven maken van SDRAM. [/break] “We're planning an aggressive ramp-up for Itanium,” he said. “It will allow adopters to deploy their technology and gain expertise and experience. These end users will then be in position to transition quickly to McKinley a year later.”
Gelsinger confirmed that the Itanium will not offer support for Direct Rambus memory, but instead will run only with single-data-rate SDRAM-and 100-MHz PC100 SDRAM at that.
The server market for which Itanium is targeted can achieve the desired memory bandwidth by ganging together large numbers of inexpensive PC100 chips, said Gelsinger, who declined to discuss how Itanium, with PC100 memory, would compete against new servers coming onto the market in the first quarter of 2001 that are expected to feature DDR SDRAM running at about 266 MHz.
In fact, DDR SDRAM is not expected to receive much attention at IDF. The updated Intel memory road map to be unveiled at IDF won't show a DDR chipset until mid-2001, when the first IA-32 Foster processor for the enterprise server market is unveiled, according to sources.
Meer info vind je bij EBN Online.