The Itanium 2 processor was released in 2002, and was marketed for enterprise servers rather than for the whole gamut of high-end computing.
The first Itanium 2, code-named McKinley, was jointly developed by HP and Intel.
It relieved many of the performance problems of the original Itanium processor, which were mostly caused by an inefficient memory subsystem.
McKinley contains 221 million transistors (of which 25 million are for logic), measured 19.5 mm by 21.6 mm (421 mm²) and was fabricated in a 180 nm, bulk CMOS process with six layers of aluminium metallization.

In 2003, AMD released the Opteron CPU, which implements its own 64-bit architecture called AMD64.
The Opteron gained rapid acceptance in the enterprise server space because it provided an easy upgrade from x86.
Under the influence of Microsoft, Intel responded by implementing AMD's x86-64 instruction set architecture instead of IA-64 in its Xeon microprocessors in 2004, resulting in a new industry-wide de facto standard.

Intel released a new Itanium 2 family member, codenamed Madison, in 2003.
Madison used a 130 nm process and was the basis of all new Itanium processors until Montecito was released in June 2006.

In March 2005, Intel announced that it was working on a new Itanium processor, codenamed Tukwila, to be released in 2007.
The Tukwila would have four processor cores and would replace the Itanium bus with a new Common System Interface, which would also be used by a new Xeon processor.

Later that year, Intel revised Tukwila's delivery date to late 2008.

In November 2005, the major Itanium server manufacturers joined with Intel and a number of software vendors to form the Itanium Solutions Alliance to promote the architecture and accelerate the software porting effort.

The Alliance announced that its members would invest $10 billion in the Itanium Solutions Alliance by the end of the decade.

In 2006, Intel delivered Montecito (marketed as the Itanium 2 9000 series), a dual-core processor that roughly doubled the performance and decreased the energy consumption by about 20 percent.

Intel released the Itanium 2 9100 series, codenamed Montvale, in November 2007.

In May 2009, the schedule for Tukwila, its follow-on, was revised again, with the release to OEMs planned for the first quarter of 2010.
The Itanium 2 processor was released in 2002, and was marketed for enterprise servers rather than for the whole gamut of high-end computing. The first Itanium 2, code-named McKinley, was jointly developed by HP and Intel. It relieved many of the performance problems of the original Itanium processor, which were mostly caused by an inefficient memory subsystem. McKinley contains 221 million transistors (of which 25 million are for logic), measured 19.5 mm by 21.6 mm (421 mm²) and was fabricated in a 180 nm, bulk CMOS process with six layers of aluminium metallization.
In 2003, AMD released the Opteron CPU, which implements its own 64-bit architecture called AMD64. The Opteron gained rapid acceptance in the enterprise server space because it provided an easy upgrade from x86. Under the influence of Microsoft, Intel responded by implementing AMD's x86-64 instruction set architecture instead of IA-64 in its Xeon microprocessors in 2004, resulting in a new industry-wide de facto standard.
Intel released a new Itanium 2 family member, codenamed Madison, in 2003. Madison used a 130 nm process and was the basis of all new Itanium processors until Montecito was released in June 2006.
In March 2005, Intel announced that it was working on a new Itanium processor, codenamed Tukwila, to be released in 2007. The Tukwila would have four processor cores and would replace the Itanium bus with a new Common System Interface, which would also be used by a new Xeon processor.
Later that year, Intel revised Tukwila's delivery date to late 2008.
In November 2005, the major Itanium server manufacturers joined with Intel and a number of software vendors to form the Itanium Solutions Alliance to promote the architecture and accelerate the software porting effort.
The Alliance announced that its members would invest $10 billion in the Itanium Solutions Alliance by the end of the decade.
In 2006, Intel delivered Montecito (marketed as the Itanium 2 9000 series), a dual-core processor that roughly doubled the performance and decreased the energy consumption by about 20 percent.
Intel released the Itanium 2 9100 series, codenamed Montvale, in November 2007.
In May 2009, the schedule for Tukwila, its follow-on, was revised again, with the release to OEMs planned for the first quarter of 2010.
Itanium