Intel v AMD: let the battle begin - Part2

John G. Spooner ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 04 Oct 1999 15:54 BST

Also at the Microprocessor Forum AMD will discuss its plans to break into uncharted territory, servers and workstations. AMD announced in August that it will dedicate a new Athlon brand, called Athlon Ultra, to servers and workstations. The company will also show off an Athlon server at a Gartner Group Forum this week.

Intel, not to be outdone, will disclose new details on its the Merced processor at the Microprocessor Forum. Merced, otherwise known as IA-64, will be the first 64-bit processor from Intel.

Meanwhile at the forum, 15 or more vendors will announce new details on their own processors, which fit a range from high-end servers to desktop PCs and information appliances, according to the forum organisers. Some of them include IBM will also show off show of details on its Power4 chip, which it has dubbed a "dual-CPU processor." The Chip for use in IBM AS/400 and RS/6000 workstations and servers includes two processors that share a level 2 cache. The processors will operate at 1 GHz plus clock speeds. Compaq will update attendees on its 64-bit Alpha processor. A number of vendors will also discuss embedded processors. National Semiconductor Inc., for one, will discuss its Geode SCI400 processor. This processor, which the company calls an "information appliance on a chip," is based on an x86 core and offers an MPEG-2 decoder, among other functions.

Also expected to be making announcements at the show are Sun Microsystems which will disclose additional details on its Microprocessor Architecture for Java Computing or MAJC chip. Motorola will also be on hand to discuss its PowerPC chip G3 and G4 processors and Altivec multimedia instruction set.

Part 1