IUB

Introduction

History

Architecture

Implications

32-bits

Software

Conclusion

Main

64-bit Processor History and Products

64-bit processors are not entirely new. They have been used for decades in high end computing applications with the UNIX operating system. All the fuzz about them came about with Intel’s announcement of its own release.

There are a lot of companies, which have produced or are currently developing 64-bit processors.  Most of these however, are targeted at very high end computing applications like huge database processing, web servers and other such applications. Below is a list of companies, which have been involved or currently are involved in the production or design.

Intel:
Merced/Itanium:

Intel's IA-64 (née Tahoe) architecture had a gestation period longer than that of an elephant. After first announcing their cooperation in 1994, Hewlett Packard and Intel said the first offspring of their matrimony would arrive "not before 1998," a prognostication that certainly proved to be true. In reality, the design was even longer in the making, for Intel and HP had stealthily begun working well before their mid-'94 announcement.

Ten years and 325 million transistors later, we behold Itanium. Originally code-named Merced, Itanium is the first-born of the IA-64 family and our first real look into how well IA-64 will--or won't--work. First and most obviously, Itanium, like all IA-64 processors, is not an x86 chip. It is a clean break from the long and legendary x86 (or IA-32, in Intel parlance) architecture that Intel invented.

That's both good news and bad news, as we shall see. It's good to be free from the tyranny of the x86 architecture, considered by many programmers to be the worst 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit CPU family ever developed. That it should have succeeded so spectacularly is enough to shake one's faith in divine forces. IA-64 leaves behind everything that made x86 chips ubiquitous, and presumably replaces it all with new bugs, new quirks, and new head-scratchers, leaving us to wonder, "Why the hell did they design it that way?"

(http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,231,00.asp)

The Itanium made its first appearance in servers.  Intel’s main focus has been on its new EPIC architecture, and the shift to IA-64 and away from x86.  While the new processor still supports 32-bit processing, it is, in fact slower on the Merced than on Intel’s P-III counterparts. The Itanium 1 was released in 2001 and followed a year later by the Itanium2 (originally known as McKinley).

The Itanium 2 is currently used in web servers and other high end computing applications in only a limited area.
 

Sun:
UltraSPARC:

A 64-bit processor that is already ON the market, ultraSPARC was a favorite for the high-end server and workstation market. 

SPARC is one of the purer RISC architectures still in existence. It's also just about the only one still used for its original purpose of powering computers. Sun has added visual- and media-processing features in its VIS (visual instruction set) extensions to SPARC. VIS adds the ability to handle packed RGB-alpha data for compression, decompression, and video-processing applications. Even with those enhancements, and fully eight generations of design, SPARC processors are all still software compatible, from the first to the most recent.

Sun's latest UltraSPARC-III just barely squeaked past 1.05 GHz in January – and it took TI's latest six-layer copper-interconnect process to do it.

SPARC is to processors what Linux is to operating systems. It has become the flagpole around which rebellious mobs gather in passive-aggressive demonstrations against the dominant player (in this case, Intel). SPARC, and Sun, have earned a weird kind of nerd chic that is out of all proportion to their relevance in the market, technical features, or performance. Sun succeeds largely on anti-PC and anti-Microsoft sentiment, not pro-Sun sensibility.

Silicon Graphics:
MIPS:

Like Sun’s UltraSPARC, MIPS are already on the market, and are known through out the industry.  It is, however, quite pricey, and only for the extreme high-end.  MIPS processors are primarily used for high-end graphics, (Jurassic Park being one example), but the market there is simply too small, and the processors are simply too pricey for the mainstream market. 

Digital/Compaq:
Alpha.

Alpha was the first 64-bit processor to reach 1 GHz, in 2001. Ironically, this milestone came just a few short weeks after Compaq proclaimed it was discontinuing Alpha development and licensing Alpha technology to Intel.

The future of this processor is heavily in doubt, as, thanks to a recent settlement, its fabrication is under the control of Intel.  It is a wonderful processor, with a forward thinking design, and it has large base of installed software, as it is capable of running Windows NT.  Often referred to as “the processor that time forgot,” Alpha’s been around for years, silently improving upon itself until today, where it is an established 64-bit processor, with something of a following.  If Intel doesn’t kill this processor now, it will be a serious contender in the 64-bit Desktop wars.  The simple fact that it has been around for so long, and has many of it’s bugs worked out will make it much more than a passive contender to the Merced and the SledgeHammer processors.

IBM:
Power3 PowerPC

Power 3 was released and followed by the rapid development of Power4 though the impact made by the former was not that much felt. Current developments are rather scanty as IBM is quite tight-lipped about future developments.

Hewlett-Packard:
PA-RISC:

Hewlett-Packard's implementation of 64-bit technology began in 1996 with the introduction of the 64-bit PA-8000 processor, which forms the basis for the industry's fastest family of commercial and technical servers. (http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechDocumentDetailPage_IDX/1,1701,937,00.html)

Elbrus:
E2K.

This processor looks very promising indeed.  Like the Merced, this processor makes use of EPIC (Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing).  Not only is it touted to support IA-64, but x86-64 base as well, giving it a decided advantage against all other comers in this game.  This processor appears to be a joint venture between Elbrus, Sun, Transmeta, and the Russian Government.  Elbrus claims that the E2K will sport HALF the die size of the Merced, with speeds of 3 to 5 times that of the Merced. Elbrus makes some pretty fantastic claims about it’s E2K processor, but if they pan out, then we have a new player on the field.... and he’s wielding a pretty formidable bat.

AMD:
SledgeHammer:

AMD’s new family of 64-bit processors namely Athlon 64 and Opteron 64 already has beta versions on the market. These processors use and extension to the original 32-bit architecture and provide complete backward compatibility to 32-bit instruction at a phenomenal speed. The Opeteron is designed for servers and workstations whereas the Athlon 64 is designed for desktop and mobile processors.

While there are numerous different companies that are either currently producing 64-bit processors, or are preparing to, there are truly only three that are really of interest: AMD’s SledgeHammer, Elbrus International’s E2K, and of course, Intel’s Merced.  The game now is between Intel and AMD who are both far advanced in their development of 64-bit processors targeted at the high-end market and eventually the desktop.

AMD is 100% backwards compatible with the installed base of x86 software, AND it’s going to have the speed to meet, if not BEAT Intel. Elbrus International seems to have the best chip of the bunch however, promising to be faster than Intel’s Merced, incorporate EPIC, AND fully compatible with x86-64 as well as IA-64.  If it can follow through with it’s claims, then it looks as if the Russians will take a significant portion of the processor market.  Intel’s Merced is the background against which all other 64-bit processors will be measured, but it does have a few things going for it, namely EPIC and a large on-die cache. Elbrus, while promising, is still a year away from production.

(http://astlor.ca/Astlor/64.htm)

In summary,

(http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechDocumentDetailPage_IDX/1,1701,937,00.html)

Reference: A summary of sites used.

(http://search390.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid10_gci498697,00.html)

(http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,231,00.asp)

(http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechDocumentDetailPage_IDX/1,1701,937,00.html)

(http://astlor.ca/Astlor/64.htm)

(http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,231,00.asp)

(http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/fe/xml/02/02/04/020204feintel.xml)

(http://www.computeruser.com/articles/2107,3,6,2,0701,02.html)

(http://www.sysopt.com/articles/64bit/index3.html)

(http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/desktops/story/0,10801,43533,00.html)

(http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/0998cim.html)

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_4699_7980,00.html

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_4699_7981,00.html

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,77735,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,72880,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,70460,00.asp

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