New PA-RISC chips appear to be popping out of the woodwork left, right and center, but they’re mostly apparitions, according to Hewlett-Packard Co (CI No 3,469). The company says there are just three parts on the table that aren’t already products, and has brushed aside any suggestion that time scales are off. The 0.25 micron PA-8500 is due in systems from the beginning of next year which will be board-upgradeable to Intel Corp’s IA-64 Merced. Yes, Merced. HP says it hasn’t abandoned Merced for the second-generation IA-64, McKinley and is committed to building mission-critical systems on Merced. The clock will be cranked soon after PA-8500’s introduction and implemented as PA-8550 (CI No 3,466). The PA-8700 shrink, which will be unveiled at next year’s Microprocessor Forum (that’s 1999) will be introduced mid-2000 in parallel with Merced. HP says it hasn’t decided whether PA-8700 will be done in 0.18 microns or some other process. It says PA-8800 is a figment of competitors’ imagination and bluntly offered that anyone who heard of a PA-8900 part at its San Diego user meet last week got the wrong end of the stick; it was talking about PA-8700. HP’s high-end 32-way V2500 server will use PA-8500, early ships of which have already been promised before year-end. V-Class’s replacement is supposedly the Merced-based Superdome (CI No 3,305). A big brother will use McKinley. At least that’s what HP has said previously. It would not reconfirm these details in a call yesterday. Meantime those new A-Class servers, including the sub-$5,000 Staccato ISP box (CI No 3,440), are also due early next year. Again HP declined to re-confirm plans it laid out last year for a Merced-upgradeable PA-8500 Prelude system incorporating a new IA-64-capable Stretch system bus (CI No 3,309).
