Intel is begonnen met de levering van Merced test samples aan computer bouwers. De uiteindelijke release staat gepland voor midden 2000. MSNBC brengt het nieuws:
“This is the very first Merced coming out of the manufacturing line,” said Gadi Singer, vice president and general manager of Intel’s IA-64 processor division, as he conducted the first public demonstration of the chip at the Intel Developer Forum here.The demonstration represents a key manufacturing step, or “first silicon” for the chip. Singer, who joined Intel president and chief executive Craig Barrett on the stage, demonstrated Merced running on an early version of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 2000 and on a next-generation version of the free Linux operating system, both of which are currently in development.
[...] Barrett said that the company was on track for volume production for Merced in mid-2000. Company executives declined to say how many prototypes of the chip they are shipping to computer makers, or to identify which computer makers are receiving the samples. The companies are helping Intel with its testing and validation of the chip, which will take about nine to 12 months.
“It’s good news,” said Rick Doherty, director of Envisioneering, a consulting firm in Seaford, N.Y. “The updated timetable will ease a lot of developers’s concerns.”
