Chapter 1. Why Itanium Processors? Benefits of the New Processor Family
“The best, simplest way to describe the 'Mission Statement' for the Itanium family of microprocessors is: Creation of an architecture that can address future business needs with the best price-performance and flexibility.”
—HP/Intel design team
In This Chapter:
Benefits of Itanium processors for different platforms
Handling Legacy Software, Hardware, and Data
In this day and age, most of us are familiar with the Silicon-valley buzzword, the 'killer app'—the creation of a software application that can do so much more than its predecessors that it's bound to create tremendous demand. However, it's less often that you hear about a 'killer chip' that will enhance information technology infrastructure to the degree that it is nothing short of a revolution. Yet that is exactly what the Intel® Itanium® processor family[1] architecture is capable of—by building on, and then breaking away from established computing principles so that it becomes the industry's new application performance leader.
[1] Intel and Itanium are registered trademarks of Intel Corporations or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
What you're seeing with Itanium development is the result of heavy investments by both Intel and Hewlett-Packard in a brand new microprocessor family. Yet this is not a matter of breaking with their established system and environments. It's an evolution, not a revolution—one that provides for maximum transition and flexibility—adding value with minimal risk to customers.