Madison and Deerfield to split Intel IA-64 architecture

Further details leaking out about the Intel IA-64 roadmap flesh the company's plans out until around 2003, and introduce two more codenames, Madison and Deerfield. According to Gordon Graylish, Intel marketing director EMEA, after McKinley's introduction in 2001, the IA-64 architecture will bifurcate into high-end and low-end versions. These are Madison (high end) and Deerfield (low end), and will be 0.13 micron. Ultimately Deerfield will be a sort of IA-64 Celeron implementation (although unless Celeron's reputation starts improving, Intel might not fancy saying this in 2003), and will at some point supplant the IA-32 line of CPUs which is currently roadmapped at Tanner, Cascades, Foster and then at least one other. The roadmap Intel set out a few weeks ago (see earlier story) covered Madison and McKinley, but didn't name them. It also appears to have been slightly misleading, because although the charts imply that Merced will be supplanted by its McKinley successor, Merced is actually intended to continue in parallel with McKinley, and to evolve into Deerfield. Graylish meanwhile confirms that Intel doesn't want people to get too excited about IA-64 too soon. As reported here earlier, Intel's plans for the continuation of IA-32 make it clear that it anticipates this being the volume platform for some time -- Foster, for example, which will be a contemporary of Merced, will offer "outstanding performance for 32-bit volume apps". Says Graylish: "We think we've got the timeline about right. There's not much requirement for 64-bit today, but in five years' time [ie. 2003] there will be." Asked why in that case people should even bother about 64-bit before McKinley, Graylish pointed out that the lead times in server and application deployment meant it was important for corporations to go with Merced initially. A 12-18 month enterprise deployment cycle would then have them poised for the arrival of McKinley. ® Microprocessor Forum Coverage Click for more stories