Intel's Tukwila slips yet again
Intel has slipped out a revised schedule for its next-generation Itanium processor, code-named Tukwila. Again. This time it's into 2010. — Intel released a statement Thursday on the schedule changes. It reads in part: … That may be true.
Context & Ripple Effects
Intel enters mid-2009 on a confident note: April brought a first-quarter profit of $647 million on $7.1 billion in revenue, beating Wall Street's estimates, alongside management's read that the sluggish PC market may have bottomed out. On the product side, the company's quad-core Nehalem chips were tracking to ship roughly on schedule back in March.
Tukwila breaks that rhythm. The next-generation Itanium processor has slipped again — this time into 2010, per Intel's own Thursday statement — making the server chip the outlier in a portfolio whose mainstream parts are hitting their dates.
First-order effects
- Customers committed to Itanium's roadmap must stretch deployments on current-generation silicon at least through 2010, since Tukwila is now the earliest point new Itanium systems can arrive.
- Intel's server-chip credibility takes another dent at precisely the moment its x86 line — Nehalem shipping on schedule — is demonstrating it can hit dates.
Second-order effects
- Enterprise buyers weighing high-end server platforms face a widening cadence gap between Itanium's slipping timetable and on-time mainstream parts, tilting refresh decisions toward whatever platform Intel executes against reliably.
- Each announced slip hands rival high-end server vendors a fresh window to court accounts that plan hardware lifecycles years out and cannot absorb indefinite uncertainty.
Third-order effects
- If repeated slippage becomes the norm rather than the exception, Itanium risks sliding from flagship roadmap item to managed-decline niche, forcing Intel to decide how much engineering spend a shrinking high-end franchise deserves.
- A pattern of missed dates on advanced designs would push the industry's real innovation clock away from paper roadmaps toward demonstrated manufacturing execution — the metric customers and investors actually price.
The trend: Chip roadmaps are becoming less credible than delivery records, as Intel's recurring delays turn manufacturing execution risk into the deciding factor for enterprise platform bets.