LinuxWorld: AMD shows off VirtuHammer simulator

by Ashlee Vance

February 2, 2001 —

ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES (AMD) this week demonstrated a software development tool for its next-generation Hammer family of 64-bit processors at the LinuxWorld conference in New York and the Linux Expo conference in Paris.

In mid-January, AMD forged a deal with Swedish computer system simulation developer Virtutech to create the VirtuHammer tool. Software developers can use the tool to write and test 64-bit programs for AMD's Hammer family of processors, scheduled for release during the first half of 2002.

Virtutech's Simics software allows a computer using the 32-bit AMD Athlon processor to simulate the operations of a 64-bit Hammer processor-based computer, allowing developers to use currently available technology to test and debug their 64-bit software.

Intel is expected to release its 64-bit Itanium processors just before mid-year. Some analysts, however, do not think AMD's late arrival to the 64-bit game will cost it too much in the long run.

"Fundamentally, whether you are talking about Itanium or SledgeHammer, there is software support that is required when you move from 32-bit to 64-bit," said Gordon Haff, research director for high-end architectures at Aberdeen Group, in Boston. "In some ways, it will be easier to do this for AMD processors. SledgeHammer is essentially a 64-bit extension of AMD's current architecture, whereas Intel has gone to a whole new instruction set."

The 32-bit applications designed for AMD's architecture should run at full speed on the company's next-generation products. Intel made more drastic changes, however, so developers will likely find the Itanium architecture to be a somewhat alien environment, making 32-bit applications run slowly with Itanium chips, Haff said.

Both companies dedicated significant resources to get developers working on their next-generation processors. Haff sees the software's arrival as one of the keys to the 64-bit systems' adoption. Like a number of analysts, Haff thinks only a select group of customers will flock to 64-bit systems upon their launch.

In particular, it appears that developers on the Linux side of things will lead the Itanium and SledgeHammer charge.

"One of the biggest challenges with new architectures is to sign up software support up front, and that appears to be happening in the Linux space," Haff said. "Linux is very strong in technical and scientific applications, particularly with custom applications. They have a need for floating-point performance and large-memory address abilities. Typically, Linux users are more likely to proactively be looking for these types of new technologies."

In time, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD could draw support from the Windows crowd for its Hammer line as well. At this point, however, there has not been any support from Windows developers for AMD's 64-bit products, Haff said.

InfoWorld