A CPU family from Intel designed to supersede Intel's x86-based servers. Although an advanced hardware architecture, and even with HP as its major supporter, Itanium gained only a fraction of the server market dominated by the x86 line. In addition, the compilers necessary to take full advantage of Itanium's elaborate architecture were never fully developed. By the time Itanium gained ground in the early 2000s, there were too many x86 servers running worldwide, and x86 performance was improving.
HP-UX (HP's Unix) and several other Unix versions run on Itanium; however, in the 2010 time frame, the Itanium versions of Windows Server, Red Hat Linux and Ubuntu Linux were given end of life.
x86 Kept Advancing
After 64-bit Itanium chips were introduced in 2001, Intel upgraded its x86 CPUs to 64 bits, and over the years added advanced security and fault detection features into high-end x86 Xeon chips. See
Intel 64 and
Xeon.
Native, x86 and HP PA-RISC Apps
Itaniums run native applications and emulate x86 and HP PA-RISC apps. x86 programs are executed in hardware or in software (see
IA-32 Execution Layer). HP PA-RISC apps are translated in software (see
Aries). For more on the Itanium architecture, see
IA-64.
Model Process Max.
Year Tech. Clock Max.
Code Name Intro (nm) Speed Cores
Itanium
Merced 2001 180 800 MHz 1
Itanium 2
McKinley 2002 180 1.0 GHz 1
Madison 2003 130 1.6 GHz 1
Deerfield 2003 130 1.0 GHz 1
Hondo 2004 130 1.1 GHz 1
Fanwood 2004 130 1.6 GHz 1
Madison 2004 130 1.7 GHz 1
Montecito 2006 90 1.6 GHz 2
Montvale 2007 90 1.7 GHz 2
Itanium 9300
Tukwila 2010 65 1.7 GHz 4
Itanium 9500
Poulson 2013 32 2.5 GHz 8