Intel Corp says it has made significant progress on Merced – now renamed Itanium – since it achieved first silicon in August. Four operating systems, including 64-bit Windows 2000 and Linux, have been demonstrated on the chip, shipment samples have gone out to OEMs, and validation programs are underway, including the testing of seven operating systems and architectures ranging from two to 64 processors. Intel says it plans to have the functional testing completed by the end of this year, when it will accelerate the performance testing and tuning phase in the first half of 2000. Intel said it expects broad prototype system deployments by itself and its OEMs in the first half of the year, ready for the first commercial launches in the middle of next year. รก
