[Info-vax] Intel: Kittson to be socket-compatible with 9300 and 9500

[Keith Parris]

During development of the Tukwila (9300) chip, Intel and HP adjusted 
plans in response to market directions and accepted the extra 
development time required to redesign Tukwila (and the planned HP 
systems) to use DDR3 memory instead of the previously-planned DDR2. This 
provided better performance for the chip and the systems designed around it.

In 2010, Intel introduced its common platform strategy that allowed 
Intel Itanium and Xeon processors to utilize common platform ingredients 
including chipsets, interconnects and memory. Xeon would gain RAS 
features from Itanium and Itanium would gain from Xeon efficiencies of 
scale due to high volumes.

At the time the HP/Oracle lawsuit exposed details of HP's strategy from 
June 2010 code-named "Kinetic" 
(http://h20341.www2.hp.com/integrity/downloads/about-kinetic.pdf), it 
was seen that plans at the time were for the Kittson chip, the Itanium 
chip expected 2-3 years after Poulson, to have a socket compatible with 
that of Xeon. But by the time of that disclosure, during the summer of 
2012, Intel had become coy and was no longer willing to comment about 
plans for Kittson socket designs.

At the November 8, 2012 announcement of the Poulson (9500) processor 
(http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2012/11/08/new-intel-itanium-processor-9500-delivers-breakthrough-capabilities-for-mission-critical-computing), 
Intel again touted its Modular Development Model which shares 
silicon-level design elements between Itanium and Xeon for logic other 
than the processor cores, and said plans were for Kittson to have a 
socket compatible with Xeon. But then last Thursday, Intel announced 
that Kittson would instead use a socket compatible with the Tukwila and 
Poulson processors, and be released in the same 32 nm process as 
Poulson. Using the same socket and process will undoubtedly allow better 
time-to-market for the Kittson processor and related system designs from 
HP, plus better potential investment protection for customers owning 
Integrity systems with Tukwila or Poulson processors. Intel did keep 
open the option of using a Xeon socket for a subsequent Itanium 
processor. The Intel announcement is at 
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/itanium/itanium-kittson-update.html. 
Intel also provided an updated customer letter which covers Kittson at 
https://pit.houston.hp.com/PIT/ESSN/Document_Storage/collateral/Intel_Itanium_Commitment_Feb_2013.pdf