The Itanium 9300 series, code-named ''Tukwila'', is the generation of

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Itanium Itanium (; ) is a discontinued family of 64-bit computing, 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). The Itanium architecture originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and was later jointly dev ...

processor family following

Itanium 2 Itanium (; ) is a discontinued family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). The Itanium architecture originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and was later jointly developed by HP and I ...

and Montecito. It was released on 8 February 2010. It utilizes both multiple

processor core A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary Processor (computing), processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes Instruction (computing), instructions ...

s (

multi-core A multi-core processor (MCP) is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit (IC) with two or more separate central processing units (CPUs), called ''cores'' to emphasize their multiplicity (for example, ''dual-core'' or ''quad-core''). Ea ...

) and SMT techniques. The engineers said to be working on this project were from the

DEC Alpha Alpha (original name Alpha AXP) is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Alpha was designed to replace 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computers ( ...

project, specifically those who worked on the

Alpha 21464 The Alpha 21464 is an unfinished microprocessor that implements the Alpha instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and later by Compaq after it acquired Digital. The microprocessor was also known as EV8 (codenam ...

(EV8), which was focused on SMT. Named for the city of

Tukwila, Washington Tukwila ( ) is a suburban city in King County, Washington, United States, located immediately to the south of Seattle. The population was 21,798 at the 2020 census. A large commercial center draws workers and consumers to the city daily; ind ...

, Tukwila was previously code-named ''Tanglewood''. The original name is also used by the

Tanglewood music festival The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Stockbridge and Lenox in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. The festival consists of a series of concerts, including symphonic music, c ...

, and Intel renamed the project in late 2003. The processor has two to four cores per die and up to 24 MB L3 of on-die cache. They are the first batch of processors to contain more than 2 billion

transistors A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

on a single die. This total is made up as follows: * core

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

— 430 million * system interface — 157 million * L3 cache — 1,420 million * I/O logic — 39 million * chip total — 2.046 billion Die size is 21.5×32.5 mm or 698.75 mm².

Xeon compatibility

It was originally stated that Tukwila and its associated chipset would bring socket compatibility between Intel's

Xeon Xeon (; ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same archite ...

and Itanium processors, by introducing a new interconnect called

Intel QuickPath Interconnect The Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) is a scalable processor interconnect developed by Intel which replaced the front-side bus (FSB) in Xeon, Itanium, and certain desktop platforms starting in 2008. It increased the scalability and available b ...

(QuickPath, previously known as Common System Interface or CSI). This ultimate endeavor would help reduce product development costs for both Intel and its partners, by allowing for greater reuse of components and manufacturing processes. Tukwila is reported to have four "full" QuickPath links and two "half" links. Whitefield, the first Xeon processor to feature QuickPath, suffered significant project delays and was cancelled. The first Xeon MP processor to feature QuickPath is

Beckton Beckton is a suburb in east London, England, located east of Charing Cross and part of the London Borough of Newham. Adjacent to the River Thames, the area consisted of unpopulated marshland known as the East Ham Levels in the parishes of Bark ...

. The released Itanium 9300-series processors are using a separate socket,

LGA 1248 LGA 1248 is an Intel CPU Socket for Itanium processors from the 9300-series to the 9700-series. It replaces PAC611 (also known as PPGA661) used by Itanium 9100-series processors and adds Intel QuickPath Interconnect functionalities. See also * ...

, which is incompatible with Xeon processors and motherboards.

Comparison table

Successor

The successor is code-named '' Poulson''. It was initially slated for a Q4 2009 release and said to have over four cores, most likely eight. In 2009 an Intel representative stated that Intel would maintain a two-year development cycle for Itanium, implying Poulson would be released in Q1 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tukwila (Processor) Intel microprocessors Very long instruction word computing