Software Addition To Enhance Capability Of Itanium

News Release

NEW SOFTWARE ADDITION WILL ENHANCE 32-BIT CAPABILITY OF
INTEL® ITANIUM® 2 PROCESSOR-BASED SYSTEMS

Intel Corporation has announced the availability of IA-32 Execution Layer (EL) software for systems powered by the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor running Microsoft Windows* operating systems. The technology provides greater flexibility for customers by increasing the performance of many 32-bit software applications and facilitating customer migration to Itanium 2-based platforms running Windows.

“While CIOs demand the reliability, scalability, world-class performance and memory addressability features that the Itanium 2 processor offers, some still wish to run legacy 32-bit applications, and this technology improves that capability without sacrificing their primary goals,” said Mike Fister, Intel senior vice president and general manager of Enterprise Platforms Group. “Though Itanium architecture-based processors have always supported 32-bit applications, this new approach enhances the performance and provides greater flexibility for future updates and scalability.”

IA-32 EL is supported in Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for 64-Bit Itanium-based Systems; Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition for 64-Bit Itanium-based Systems; and Windows XP 64-Bit Edition. The software is available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/64bit/ipf/default.mspx.

"Microsoft has worked with Intel to make the IA-32 Execution Layer available to Windows users running Intel Itanium 2 systems,” said Bob Muglia, senior vice president, Windows Server Division, Microsoft Corp. “The EL enhancement will be of great help to customers who are primarily running 64-bit applications, but also have a need to run 32-bit supporting software. This enhanced capability will help customers in their decision to deploy 64-bit Windows for their end-to-end enterprise computing needs.”

IA-32 EL is a software package integrated with the operating system. Itanium 2 processors provide support for 32-bit applications using on-die hardware; however, with IA-32 EL, support for IA-32 applications will be carried out in software. After installation, execution of the 32-bit applications is transparently run using IA-32 EL. At run time, the IA-32 Execution Layer translates the IA-32 application code into native Itanium architecture code and allows it to run as native code.

The Intel Itanium 2 processor boasts record-setting performance and the availability of more than 1,000 applications. In the past year, the mix of customers buying Itanium architecture-based systems has evolved to enterprise customers from its historical ranks of high-performance/scientific users. Currently, 14 of the top 25 Global 500 companies have deployed or are evaluating the architecture.

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.

Intel, the Intel logo, and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

ENDS

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