Re:AMD Killed the Itanium
by hajile on Saturday February 04, 2023 @06:21PM
(#34659520)
Intel bought Alpha from HP/Compaq.
The biggest reason Alpha was a "workstation" chip was margin and R&D issues. It was fast, but they couldn't manufacture in high volume which drove per-chip costs much higher than they could have been if paired with a company like Intel. Meanwhile, complete dependence on manual layout for everything pushed development cost and time to market too far out. Once again, Intel's design tools could have helped reduce this overhead.
The biggest reason Alpha was a "workstation" chip was margin and R&D issues. It was fast, but they couldn't manufacture in high volume which drove per-chip costs much higher than they could have been if paired with a company like Intel. Meanwhile, complete dependence on manual layout for everything pushed development cost and time to market too far out. Once again, Intel's design tools could have helped reduce this overhead.