chipguy,
Yet another example of PC myopia. Perhaps you should
review the history of the computer industry to see how long
new ISAs took to grow to prominence, especially in the
server market. The RISC architectures around today were
introduced 14 to 20 years ago.
That was at the time RISCs were competing with very limited PC based servers. There was a plenty of room above that for RISC architectures to exist, prosper and multiply in numbers. IPF missed those good old days.
These days, if you went to a veture capital firm with a proposal to start a new high end CPU with new ISA, I think a secretary would call the paramedics, and would have you escorted out to a room with padded walls...
IPF is an example how bankrupt that idea is today, despite the fact that IPF has a nearly decade long head start, from the time when the idea of starting new ISA was not completely crazy.
IPF itself is bankrupt many times over, only kept alive because Intel can move large sums of cash from its profitable PC business to unprofitable Itanium business.
IPF didn't start to get taken seriously until McKinley was
introduced in 2002
Well, it took a long time to get it out of the lab. We can discuss if it was:
- poor execution
- ill conceived idea to start a new ISA
- EPIC itself being less than a briliant idea
I expect IPF to overtake SPARC this year and POWER
before the end of the decade.
Very possible, as long as Intel keeps the life support going. But I am more interested in how this market (of boutique CPUs) will continue to shrink vs. x64 servers.
Maybe we should start a contest of which processor will be the last one to turn out the lights on this segment: SPARC, IPF or POWER
Joe
AI
