Intel Will Start Production of Its New Chip in 1999

Intel Corp. said Thursday that its next-generation Merced microprocessor, a much-anticipated product that promises a major shift in computer design, will go into production in 1999, with the first public disclosures about the chip coming at a conference next week.

Santa Clara-based Intel also said the 64-bit microprocessor will run all software programs developed to run on its 32-bit Pentium processors. The world’s largest semiconductor maker has been developing the Merced since 1993 in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard Co., and the chip is expected to set the standard for computers in the next century.

The new architecture represents one of the biggest technology shifts that Intel has faced in its history. For many years, it has designed its microprocessors around the x86 architecture that it designed in the early 1980s, with its 8086 and its 8088 processors used in the first IBM PCs.

Many semiconductor engineers and software developers are awaiting details on the new technology, and Intel and Hewlett-Packard will provide some of them at the Microprocessor Forum conference next week in San Jose.

“Mostly they will be showing the architectural features . . . in the forms of block diagrams, as opposed to performance, because they don’t want to be tipping their hand to competitors,” said Drew Peck, a Cowen & Co. analyst.

The new architecture is described by some industry analysts as “post-RISC” architecture, meaning that it will incorporate some of the techniques of reduced instruction-set computing, but it will advance processor performance.

Intel’s original x86 architecture used CISC (complex instruction set computing) and later chips, such as the Pentium and Pentium follow-ons, incorporate elements of RISC architecture for faster performance because the chip processes fewer instructions.

“Most performance gains from RISC have been wrung out at this point,” said Andrew Allison, editor of Inside the New Computer Industry, in Carmel.

Intel said the processor will provide new levels of performance and features for servers and workstations. Intel was not more specific about the levels of performance gains, and analysts said they do not expect Intel to disclose many details on performance or speeds next week.

The chip is still in the design phase and has not yet achieved “first silicon,” an industry term to mean that the chip has been manufactured for testing purposes.

Merced will be produced on Intel’s 0.18 micron process technology, which is currently under development, to create even finer geometries for etching transistors on a silicon wafer, than the current 0.25 and 0.35 micron process technology.

At the same time, Dell Computer Corp. said it plans to support the Merced technology. A Dell spokesman said that the Austin, Texas-based computer maker will initially develop servers and workstations around the new chip family.

Dell said that it could not disclose when it expects to have products designed around Merced.

“You can assume that as the Merced processor is available, we will launch products at that time,” Dell said.