Itanium 2 glitch can be avoided - by going slow
Published: 13 May 2003 16:18 BST
The recent problem discovered in Intel's Itanium 2 processor can be avoided, but only by forcing the chip to run at a lower speed
The glitch is a circuitry problem that can cause computers with either the 900MHz or 1GHz Itanium 2 processors to behave erratically or crash. Intel now has developed a process to screen for the problem during manufacturing and a separate software package that can be used by computer makers to find the problem.
In the meantime, people can sidestep the issue by setting the Itanium 2 to run at a slower 800MHz speed. The coming 1.5GHz Itanium 2 6M, expected this summer, isn't affected, Intel said.
An NEC customer was responsible for uncovering the glitch that Intel announced on Monday. NEC brought the matter to Intel's attention, said Mike Mitsch, senior director of server solutions for NEC America. The customer found the glitch "relatively recently", said Mitsch, but he declined to identify the person.
NEC, like Hewlett-Packard, SGI and Unisys, is screening for the problem before shipping new systems. IBM, on the other hand, has halted shipments of the x450, Big Blue's first serious foray into the Itanium market. Dell, which won't sell Itanium servers until it releases an Itanium 2 6M-based product in the second half of the year, said it's not affected.
Intel has done well first with Pentium then with Xeon processors for use in lower-end servers, but the Itanium family is Intel's ambitious attempt to penetrate the upper echelons of the market currently dominated by IBM, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. There, servers can cost millions of dollars and are entrusted with customers' most precious data.
Monday's glitch was one of a series of black marks on the chip family's record, along with several delays and poor performance of the first-generation Itanium, code-named "Merced".
But beginning with Itanium 2, the processor family has met many of Intel's hopes. Several computer makers are using the processor in powerful designs -- including a 128-processor behemoth planned at Hewlett-Packard -- and the Itanium 2 has shown good performance. And with new software called the IA-32 Execution Layer coming later this year, Intel hopes to ease problems the chip has running software written for Pentium and Xeon.
The Monday's electrical glitch in Itanium 2 isn't as serious as it could have been, said Mercury Research analyst Dean McCarron.
"Certainly a server processor that has reliability issues has great concern, since servers aren't supposed to make mistakes, but the actual number of systems affected is going to be tiny compared to the more traditional server market based on Xeon," McCarron said.
To find out more about the computers and hardware that these chips are being used in, see ZDNet UK's Hardware News Section.
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