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Intel Itanium Steps Up To AMD
Opteron With Emulation
Intel Corp is developing new emulation software designed to speed the way
its
Itanium processor runs certain applications on server computers, an Intel
spokeswoman said recently.
Intel has spent heavily to develop the Itanium chip in order to meet the
needs
of faster and more powerful software. The microchip allows servers to run both
32-bit applications, which crunch 32 bits of data at a time and comprise most
of the software in use today, and newer 64-bit applications, which are faster
because they process more bits of data at a time.
However, industry analysts say 32-bit applications don't perform as well on
the Itanium chip as they do on 32-bit processors like Intel's Pentium and
Xeon.
Intel is working with Microsoft Corp and Linux developers to include a
software emulator, called IA-32 Execution Layer, in their operating system
software, said Intel spokeswoman Barbara Grimes.
The emulator works by taking the 32-bit application code and converting it
into native 64-bit code that the Itanium processor can run, she explained.
"It boosts the performance of Itanium running 32-bit applications and it
allows us to incorporate support for new 32-bit instructions faster," Grimes
said.
Intel expects the software to boost the performance of 32-bit code running
on
Itanium to roughly equivalent to that of a 1.5 gigahertz Xeon processor, she
said.
The software will be rolling out in products beginning in the second half
of
this year, according to Grimes.
The news comes two days after rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc unveiled its
new microprocessor, Opteron, for servers that run both 64-bit and 32-bit
software fast.
The Opteron servers are much less expensive than Itanium machines and at
the
time of the Opteron announcement, analysts wondered how Intel would solve the
32-bit performance issue with Itanium.
One analyst praised Intel's software emulation plan.
"This certainly does blunt AMD's argument that if you need to do both
32-bit
and 64-bit, Opteron is the only answer," said Nathan Brookwood of Insight 64.
"It makes the transition to Itanium easier, and that can't hurt."
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