Hitachi First to Develop Intel Itanium 2 Processor Chipsets

March 2, 2005

Hitachi, Ltd. announced the development and operational verification of the world's first chipset supporting FSB (Front Side Bus) speeds of 667MHz for the Intel Itanium 2 Processor. In addition, the development also employs Hitachi's virtualization feature with Intel Virtualization Technology. The virtualization feature was demonstrated using the next generation Intel Itanium 2 Processor (Code Name: Montecito). Evaluation and verification of these new features and products continue co-jointly with Intel Corporation.

Hitachi will be exhibiting its BladeSymphony product powered by the FSB 667MHz chipset at the Hitachi booth in the Technology showcase and Hitachi's virtualization feature will be presented in the Intel Pavilion during the Intel Developer Forum on March 1st ~ 3rd, 2005 in San Francisco, Calif.

"Today's demonstration of hardware-assisted virtualization is a result of the strong collaboration between Intel and Hitachi," said Patrick P. Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group. "Delivering advanced server platforms that combine Hitachi's chipset with Intel(R) Itanium(R) processor family and Intel(R) Virtualization Technology will provide real benefits to IT managers looking to improve their virtualization solutions in the enterprise."

Highlights of the implementation are:

1. Development of the first chipset supporting 667MHz FSB by Hitachi
Development of this chipset was based on many years of experience and knowledge acquired from high speed logic and PCB (Printed Circuit Board) packaging designs for Hitachi's mainframe products.

The FSB achieves SPECCPU2000 Benchmark improvements of 15%* and STREAM Benchmark improvements of 40%* due to higher speeds realized. Tasks requiring large memory support such as scientific calculations and large databases can capitalize on the performance and high processing power of the Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 Processor.
*: FSB 400MHz comparison

2. Development of Hitachi's virtualization feature with Intel(R) Virtualization Technology.
Server virtualization development was achieved with Intel(R) Virtualization Technology and Hitachi virtualization feature. This feature was based on Hitachi's integrated mainframe virtualization software technology and the feature was tested co-jointly with Intel Corporation. Multiple logical partitioning based on the virtualization of hardware resources without any guest software modification provides a flexible and efficient server environment.