Posted on 12/15/2004 6:44:58 PM PST by BenLurkin
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Intel Corp. has reached an agreement to hire hundreds of Hewlett-Packard Co. engineers who helped design the Itanium microprocessor, a massive joint project between the two technology companies since the early 1990s. As a result, all Itanium processor design work will now be done entirely within Intel, though HP on Wednesday announced it plans to invest more than $3 billion over the next three years to continue its commitment to the chip.
The HP team, which is based in Fort Collins, Colo., will not have to relocate, said Intel spokesman Robert Manetta. Other terms of the agreement, which will be formally announced Thursday, were not released.
Itanium was conceived as a processor for high-end computers like servers and workstations. Specifically, it was supposed to displace Reduced Instruction Set Computing processors from International Business Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
But after nearly a decade of development, Itanium was launched in 2001 just as the tech bubble had popped and demand for high-end servers stagnated. Lower-priced chips like those used in personal computers also were becoming powerful enough to capture some of the business.
Still, the RISC server market remains extremely lucrative, estimated to have about $20 billion a year in sales.
"The addition of this world-class design team to Intel's industry leading capabilities will further strengthen the product line," said Paul Otellini, Intel's chief operating officer.
HP's investment will cover research and investment, server and system software design, applications as well as sales and marketing, the companies said.
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On the Net:
Intel Itanium: http://www.intel.com/itanium
AP-ES-12-15-04 2005EST
Nice chip, shame they couldn't commit to it.
-Yossarian (chip designer)
Did they say how many employees are going on the street?
But then again, you'd have to be working for Intel, one of the least-liked companies in the Silicon Valley - very compartmentalized, very secretive, and very stifling for good designers.
Dunno. Guess it depends on how many HP'ers they decide not to hire. Sounds like those that want to work for Intel will probably get the chance. Good for them - better Intel than sitting around and waiting for Carly to axe them ;)
That must be why all those Alpha guys jumped to Intel last year - because it sucks so much to work there. Or is it because they're not good designers? ;)
The Alpha wasn't a good design?
I just see people very happy to leave Intel. Of course, I've seen people eager to leave NVidia as well (it's a notorious meat-grinder), but at least they say they respect their management, even as they are working them to death....
The Alpha ROCKED! Too bad that they were doing it for DEC....
Alpha and StrongARM are my two favorite chips, from a designer's perspective.
Itanium - the solution in search of a problem. I'm still waiting for those 64 bit apps. Notepad-64 gets a bit old after awhile.
A little bit of sarcasm, my friend ;)
What's wrong with the 6502?
I've done a lot of contract work at a lot of places - every place I've ever been, there was someone there who was happy to leave. Sometimes the place really did suck, and sometimes it was the people leaving who sucked - you just never really know 'til you're on the inside ;)
Why? Because all those 64-bit pathways make the chip bigger, and bigger chips are slower chips.
Of course, some media instructions are good to have as wide as reasonable, and operating systems will use more and more RAM as disk caches. But in general, it's like renting a limo when a Ferrari would do.
What is your chip?
Can't say yet :-) But when it comes out, it will make waves, that's for sure!
Okay, who do you work for? ;)
It's not the address space that interests me, it's the 64-bit registers I would like to be able to use.
I shouldn't really say. Let's just say it'sa big monster of a company.
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