Intel will preview its next Itanium processor on Sunday and improvements include better power management, reliability and architecture. No timeline was set for the next Itanium, code-named Poulson.
The next Itanium will be designed to take advantage of advances in the Xeon processor architecture. The two chips will also be pin compatible. Itanium is targeted at the Unix and mainframe markets. Xeons handle Windows, Solaris and Linux machines.
Rory M. McInerney, vice president of the Intel Architecture Group and director of the Microprocessor Development Group, planned to preview Itanium at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco.
Among the key highlights from Poulson:
In some respects, Itanium and the Xeon are starting to look a lot alike. In a briefing, McInerney made the following points: