IBM has said it is developing chipsets for an eight-way Merced machine using a combination of copper wiring and silicon on insulator (SOI) technology. The company said that it is migrating a number of features from high end servers to support the Intel platform. Bill Colton, worldwide general manager of the Netfinity division, said: "We will blend the best IBM technologies -- the stuff that powered the Nagano Olympics and Deep Blue -- with the best of the Wintel architecture to create hardware that stands apart from the pack." Other features it will use in the 8-way Merced processor include OnForever, a scheme intended to extend high availability capabilities of Hot Plug PCI to processors and memory and provide diagnostics. Netfinity server clusters will be able to use interconnect technology from the SP RS/6000, which will allow the connection of Netfinity servers to RS/6000 SP clusters. According to Big Blue, the SOI based chipsets deliver higher speed and performance clusters, a claim Intel denies. The company will also incorporate glass ceramic chip carriers into Netfinity servers. That gives faster communication between chips, claimed IBM, without increasing heat or consuming more electricity. ® Click here for more stories