| The
processor,which has experienced
some delays, is the 64-bit Itanium
chip. It's Intel's first foray
into a high-end market largely
defined by such companies as Sun
Microsystems and IBM. Intel is
currently shipping prototype
Itanium chips to computer makers
for testing, analysts have said. Although 800 MHz will
make the new 64-bit chip slower
than Pentium IIIs when it comes
out, there are a number of
performance benefits for this
chip, Intel executives said at
the International Solid-State
Circuits Conference here.
"Eight-hundred
MHz will be our speed at
production; however, this is just
the beginning," said Gadi
Singer, one of the head
researchers on the Itanium
project. "The 800-MHz (chip)
is being developed on a
relatively new process and the
architecture is not tuned yet for
critical speed paths."
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