Intel Corporation has unveiled its 64-bit processor, Merced, at its developers'' conference in California.  Merced is expected to lead the 64-bit architecture processors, with its launch slated for mid-2000.

Talking to a gathering at the Intel Developer Forum, Intel president and CEO Craig Barrett said  soon all homes will become e-homes and all business will move to e-business. Mr Barrett highlighted the importance of the emerging Internet economy and showcased the infrastructure needed to support it.

As the first processor in the IA-64 product family, the Merced processor is an ideal engine for e-business. The Merced processor will provide the computing capabilities that the evolving Internet economy demands, meeting the increasingly large memory, performance and high availability requirements of future data warehousing, e-business and other mission-critical server and workstation applications.

Mr Barrett demonstrated the processor on an engineering prototype platform running the early version of Microsoft’s 64-bit Windows operating system and a 64-bit graphics application. The Merced-based system also ran a prototype IA-64 Linux operating system with a web server. Intel is working with a number of major operating system vendors to develop optimised versions of their operating systems for the IA-64 architecture. Intel also announced that it has begun shipment of the first engineering units of the Merced processor to its customers. The first server and workstation systems running on Merced would be available by mid-2000.

The Intel developer forum is a three-day half yearly forum that provides hardware OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and IHVs (independent hardware vendors) in-depth information on Intel technologies and initiatives.