Intel cuts back Itanium plans, raising questions about chip's future

The upcoming Kittson chip will no longer be manufactured on a new process or be socket-compatible with Intel's Xeon

Intel has scaled back plans for the next version of Itanium in a move that raises questions about the future of the 64-bit server chip, used primarily in Hewlett-Packard's high-end Integrity servers.

In a short notice posted quietly to its website on Jan. 31, Intel said the next version of Itanium, codenamed Kittson, will be produced on a 32 nanometer manufacturing process, like the current version of Itanium, instead of on a more advanced process, as it had previously planned.

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Brookwood said Intel and HP could go on tweaking Kittson's architecture for years, giving customers a stream of minor improvements. But he was disappointed to see both the process shrink and the Xeon socket compatibility being shelved.

"This clearly suggests some backing off," he said.

James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.