By Dan Jones

Compaq Computer Corp sees Linux and high performance computing systems as the savior of its Alpha microprocessor design, now that Microsoft Corp is no longer developing Windows 2000 for the Intel IA-64 rival. Jesse Lipcon, vice president of Alpha technology at Compaq, claims that Linux will help to level the playing field across architectures for Alpha. To push ahead in the high performance-computing field, the company is delivering its first 128-way systems and working on its Alpha roadmap up to version EV10 of the architecture.

Despite the blow that Microsoft terminating the Windows 2000 development work must have been, Lipcon is bullish about the prospects for Alpha on Linux. We expect far better unit volume opportunities with Linux than with 64-bit NT, he claimed. He said that Linux on Alpha would be strong in the web server and telecoms market but offered Alpha the chance to gain foothold across the market. And because Linux runs applications at code level and has a compact kernel, Lipcon claimed it is much more manageable than the code base for NT – which runs to nearly 50 million lines.

Lipcon claims that Alpha already has the lead in the high performance computing sphere. He claimed that Alpha had a 26% share of the market by revenue, against the 18% slice that the MIPS and PowerPC architectures have and Hewlett Packard Co’s Precision’s 10% portion. Furthermore, MIPS is going away, Precision is going away, he said. To bolster its high-end profile Compaq has been developing 128-way Alpha systems with Quadrix Supercomputer, which it has just delivered to various government departments. Compaq is planning to scale these systems up to 256-way over time.

However, the real challenge to Alpha will come when the first Merced systems arrive which could be as soon as the middle of next year now that Intel has working IA-64 silicon. Compaq, working with its partner Samsung Corp, is expecting to have 833MHz Alpha EV67 chips out on the market by early 2000. However, the real Alpha challenger to Merced will be the EV68A, which will be the first Alpha built on a 0.18 micron process, although it will still use aluminum wiring. The EV68A will run at 1GHz or over, producing SpecInt95 benchmarks of 60 and SpecFP95 marks of 120. Samsung has already produced a 1GHz demonstration version of the EV67, which is built on a 0.25 micron process but uses specially tuned transistors. Lipcon says that Samsung has already produced samples of the EV68 and expects the chip to be in systems by mid-2000. This will put us in a continued leadership position, Lipcon said. Compaq is delivering a paper on the EV67 at this year’s Microprocessor forum and another on the EV8 next year. Lipcon said that development of the EV9 and EV10 was well in hand.

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