(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Hitachi to Sell Super Servers in 2000 Without Merced Chips
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November 5, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Hitachi Ltd. will market super open servers
using a processor technology common to its Skyline Series of mainframe
computers.
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Hiroshi Kuwabara, Hitachi's executive vice president, and Toshihiko Odaka,
a director, informed Nikkei Watcher on IT Business of the server strategy.
Hitachi's new server will be commercialized by the end of 2000 when major
producers of servers are expected to start marketing the next generation
of servers based on the UNIX or Microsoft Windows NT5.0 operating systems.
Hitachi is studying whether to offer UNIX or Windows NT, or make both
the operating systems available on the new servers.
Competition already is intense in the development phase of next-generation
servers and part of that competition revolves around various combinations
of 64-bit microprocessors and operating systems.
NEC Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. of the United
States, and other server makers are developing UNIX/Windows NT servers
based on Merced, a 64-bit microprocessor under development by Intel
Corp.
Other makers, including Sun Microsystems Inc. of the United States and
Fujitsu Ltd., are preparing next-generation servers using Sun's SPARC
microprocessors; Compaq, which acquired Digital Equipment Corp. of the
United States, is developing next-generation Alpha servers, and IBM
Corp. is preparing RS/6000 and AS/400 products using Power4 for delivery
by 2001.
Hitachi's "big servers" are to be designed "for higher performance and
superior user-friendliness," Kuwabara said.
The company is adopting a forward-looking plan for the OEM business.
The business seems to highly intricate, with the exchanging of mission-critical
mainframes as well as competition for achieving the top performance
among high-end servers for the purpose of server integration.
"Hitachi's next servers are being designed based on semiconductor process
technologies shared with the Skyline II and later versions," Odaka said.
Hitachi applied the ACE technology, in combination with the complementary
metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology and high-speed emitter coupled
logic (ECL) technology, to processors used in the Skyline Series. That
series is compatible with the IBM S/390 mainframe computer.
The Skyline Series is the only product line to which the ECL technology
is applied, for higher performance.
Hitachi is now developing the 12 symmetrical multiprocessor (SMP) Skyline
II with single processor performance of 280 MIPS, and projected to reach
350 MIPS in fiscal 2000. The company targets a product release in the
autumn of 1999. The next servers will have RISC microprocessors due
to be developed based on the technologies of Skyline II and its successors,
the company said.
Kuwabara noted: "Servers with Merced and similar processors can match
the performance of tens or hundreds of SMPs. But they won't result in
ease of use for customers. Also, such servers will have lower cost/performance
than is expected because the performance cannot increase in a scalable
manner despite the multi-head configuration. We will sell Big Servers
with same number of SMPs as Skyline II."
Hitachi's mainframes comprise two series: (1) the Skyline based on the
ACE technology, and (2) the mid-large range Pilot Series based on the
combination of the IBM S/390 CMOS chip technology and Hitachi's IC package
technology.
"The two series will be retained through the time of the Skyline II successors
and later versions, and the super large servers will be developed using
our own processor device technology," Odaka said.
Hitachi aims to build the best components that it can and to buy other
superior items from vendors, Kuwabara said.
Related stories:
� Hitachi Unveils IC Tech for Next Mainframe Computers
� Hitachi's Next-Generation Mainframe to Be Unveiled Soon
(Nikkei
Watcher on IT Business)
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