Montecito is the code-name of a major release of Intel's
Itanium 2Itanium is a family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture . The processors are marketed for use in enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems...
ProcessorThe Central Processing Unit or processor is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer's functions. This term has been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s...
Family (IPF), which implements the
Intel Itanium architecture on a dual-core processor. It was officially launched by Intel on July 18, 2006 as the "Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 processor". According to Intel, Montecito doubles performance versus the previous, single-core Itanium 2 processor, and reduces power consumption by about 20%.
http://www.intel.com/products/processor/itanium2/index.htm It also adds multi-threading capabilities (two threads per core), a greatly expanded cache subsystem (12 MB per core), and silicon support for virtualization.
- Two cores
Multicore may refer to:* Multi-core * multicore cable* audio multicore cable...
per dieA die in the context of integrated circuits is a small block of semiconducting material, on which a given functional circuit is fabricated.Typically, integrated circuits are produced in large batches on a single wafer of electronic-grade silicon through processes such as photolithography. The...
- 2-way coarse-grained multithreading per core (not simultaneous).
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Montecito is the code-name of a major release of Intel's
Itanium 2Itanium is a family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture . The processors are marketed for use in enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems...
ProcessorThe Central Processing Unit or processor is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer's functions. This term has been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s...
Family (IPF), which implements the
Intel Itanium architecture on a dual-core processor. It was officially launched by Intel on July 18, 2006 as the "Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 processor". According to Intel, Montecito doubles performance versus the previous, single-core Itanium 2 processor, and reduces power consumption by about 20%.
http://www.intel.com/products/processor/itanium2/index.htm It also adds multi-threading capabilities (two threads per core), a greatly expanded cache subsystem (12 MB per core), and silicon support for virtualization.
Architectural Features and Attributes
- Two cores
Multicore may refer to:* Multi-core * multicore cable* audio multicore cable...
per dieA die in the context of integrated circuits is a small block of semiconducting material, on which a given functional circuit is fabricated.Typically, integrated circuits are produced in large batches on a single wafer of electronic-grade silicon through processes such as photolithography. The...
- 2-way coarse-grained multithreading per core (not simultaneous). Montecito-flavour of multi-threading is dubbed temporal, or TMT. This is also known as switch-on-event multithreading, or SoEMT. The two separate threads do not run simultaneously, but the core switches thread in case of a high latency
Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured.-Packet-switched networks:...
event, like an L3 cache missA CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations...
which would otherwise stall execution. By this technique, multi-threaded workloads, including databaseA database is an integrated collection of logically related records or files consolidated into a common pool that provides data for one or more multiple uses....
-like workloads, should improve by 15-35%.
- a total of 4 threads per die
- separate 16 KB
The kilobyte is a unit of digital information storage equal to either 1,000 bytes or 1,024 bytes , depending on context....
Instruction L1 and 16 KB Data L1 cache per core
- separate 1 MB
The megabyte is an SI-multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission and is equal to 10
6 bytes. However, due to historical usage in computer-related fields it is still often used to represent 2
20 bytes. In rare cases, it is used to mean...
Instruction L2 and 256 KB Data L2 cache per core, improved hierarchyThe term memory hierarchy is used in the theory of computation when discussing performance issues in computer architectural design, algorithm predictions, and the lower level programming constructs such as involving locality of reference. A 'memory hierarchy' in computer storage distinguishes each...
- 12 MB L3 cache per core, 24 MB L3 per die
- 1.72 billion transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals. A transistor is made of a solid piece of a semiconductor material, with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's...
s per die, which is added up from:
- core logic
Digital electronics are systems that represent signals as discrete levels, rather than as a continuous range. In most cases the number of states is two, and these states are represented by two voltage levels: one near to zero volts and one at a higher level depending on the supply voltage in use...
— 57M, or 28.5M per core
- core caches — 106.5M
- 24 MB L3 cache — 1550M
- bus
In computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data between computer components inside a computer or between computers.Early computer buses were literally parallel electrical buses with multiple connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the...
logic & I/OIn computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system , and the outside world – possibly a human, or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it...
— 6.7M
- Die size is 27.72 mm × 21.5 mm, or 596 mm²
- 90 nanometer
The 90 nanometer process refers to the level of CMOS process technology that was reached in the 2002-2003 timeframe, by most leading semiconductor companies, like Intel, AMD, Infineon, Texas Instruments, IBM, and TSMC....
design
- Lower power
Electric power is defined as the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt.When electric current flows in a circuit, it can transfer energy to do mechanical or thermodynamic work...
consumption and thermalIn physics and thermodynamics, heat is the process of energy transfer from one body or system due to thermal contact, which in turn is defined as an energy transfer to a body in any other way than due to work performed on the body....
dissipation than earlier flagship Itaniums, despite the high transistor count and higher clockAlthough the word signal has a number of other meanings, the term is here used for "transmitted energy that can carry information." In electronics and especially synchronous digital circuits, a clock signal is a particular type of signal that oscillates between a high and a low state and is...
speeds; 75-104 WThe watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units . It measures rate of energy conversion. One watt is equivalent to 1 joule of energy per second....
. This is mainly achieved by applying different types of transistors. By default, slower and low-leakage transistors were used, while high-speed, thus high-leakage ones where it was necessary.
- Advanced compensation for errors in cache, for reliable operation under mission-critical workloads. This was code-named Pellston technology during development, and has recently been renamed Intel Cache Safe Technology.
- Virtualization technology allowing multiple OS instances per chip. This was known as Silvervale technology during development, and is now called Intel Virtualization Technology.
- Improved, higher bandwidth
In computer networking and computer science, digital bandwidth, network bandwidth or just bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bit/s or multiples of it ....
front side busIn personal computers, the front side bus is the bus that carries data between the CPU and the northbridge.Depending on the processor used, some computers may also have a back-side bus that connects the CPU to the cache...
(FSB), with three times the capacity of the existing bus design. It is meant to be at system level (per node, with 4 dies). System throughputIn communication networks, such as Ethernet or packet radio, throughput or network throughput is the average rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel. These data may be delivered over a physical or logical link, or pass through a certain network node...
per node should be at least 21 GBThe gigabyte is an SI-multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109, therefore 1 gigabyte is ....
/sThe second , sometimes abbreviated sec., is the name of a unit of time, and is the International System of Units base unit of time...
, which suggest dual 333.333 MHz (double pumpedIn computing, a computer bus operating with double data rate transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal. This is also known as double pumped, dual-pumped, and double transition....
, resulting 2×667 effective MHz) front side bus. However, it is up to system integrators how they organize their bus topology.
- All Montecito processors support 533 MHz / 400 MHz FSB speed.
- Also available with legacy
A legacy system is an old method, technology, computer system, or application program that continues to be used, typically because it still functions for the users' needs, even though newer technology or more efficient methods of performing a task are now available...
FSB for upgradingThe term upgrade refers to the replacement of a product with a newer version of that same product. It is most often used in computing and consumer electronics, generally meaning a replacement of hardware, software or firmware with a newer or better version, in order to bring the system up to date...
existing system designs.
- Eliminates the hardware-based x86
The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086. The term derived from the fact that many early processors backward compatible with the 8086 also had names ending in "86". Many additions and extensions have been added to the x86 instruction set over the...
instruction emulation circuity, in favor of the more efficient software-based IA-32 Execution LayerThe IA-32 Execution Layer is a software emulator in the form of a software driver that improves performance of 32-bit applications running on 64-bit Intel Itanium-based systems, particularly those running Linux and Windows Server 2003...
.http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-6028817.html
On October 25 2005 Intel announced that the first dual-core Itanium processor would be delayed until "the middle of next year."
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,123190,00.asp Montecito was launched on July 18, 2006. Due to unspecified issues, Intel’s
Foxton power management technologyFoxton is an Intel code-name for a power-management technology that was originally planned for inclusion in the first dual-core Itanium 2 processor...
was disabled in the first release of Montecito, and the front-side bus frequency was reduced to 267 MHz (533.333 MHz effective) instead of the 333 MHz speed originally scheduled for the design [3].
At the time of launch, the following models and pricing were available:
- Itanium 2 9050 1.60 GHz / 24 MB L3 — $3,692
- Itanium 2 9040 1.60 GHz / 16 MB L3 — $1,980
- Itanium 2 9030 1.60 GHz / 8 MB L3 — $1,552
- Itanium 2 9020 1.42 GHz / 12 MB L3 — $910
- Itanium 2 9015 1.40 GHz / 12 MB L3 — $749
- Itanium 2 9010 1.60 GHz / 6 MB L3 / single core — $696
There are no plans for additional Montecito processors; the successor, Montvale was released in late 2007.