SAN JOSE, Calif., -- SuperMicro, Inc., a leader in the design and manufacture of server solutions and motherboards, today announced it would begin shipments mid-year of several new server solutions in 1U, 2U, and 3U as well as tower form factors, all of which will provide support for next generation dual Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processors for unparalleled high performance. Building on its leadership momentum in the Intel Xeon(TM) processor-based server solution business, SuperMicro will become one of the first manufacturers to deliver Intel Itanium 2 processor- based server solutions to the channel in production volume. "The Itanium processor family is designed to meet the needs of the most compute-intensive environments while enabling systems to be delivered at lower cost and with greater choice than proprietary platforms," said Mike Graf, product line manager, Intel Itanium Processor Family. "SuperMicro's position as a leading supplier of Intel-based platforms will be further strengthened with its Itanium 2-based system offerings." The Itanium 2 processor with 6.4 GB/s data bus capability is Intel's newest design for high-end servers and workstations. The processor provides high performance at a significantly lower cost than proprietary architectures. Targeted applications include large databases, security transactions and business intelligence as well as high-performance computing applications. SuperMicro's new lineup of dual-processor boards support 533 MHz system bus Intel Xeon processors with clock speeds up to 2.8 GHz and Intel Itanium 2 processors with speeds up to 1.5 GHz. The serverboards include dual channel Ultra 320 SCSI controllers, Zero Channel SCSI RAID support, dual Gigabyte Ethernet LAN ports and an IPMI 1.5 (Intelligent Management Platform Interface) socket that enables comprehensive, remote web-based management. Memory is supported with an industry-leading eight DIMMS for registered ECC DDR-266 SDRAM memory configurations up to 16 GB in size. Advanced Performance Features The new dual Xeon(TM)/Itanium(R) 2-based serverboards are scheduled to ship in midyear. The line includes: -- i2DD8-G2/i2DDE-G2 and i2DM8-G2/i2DME-G2 -- Based on the Intel(R) E8870 chipset, these serverboards feature two P64H2 bridge controller chips for four independent buses and high I/O bandwidth that supports four 64-bit/133/100 MHz PCI-X slots. These extended ATX boards also offer support for up to 16 GB of regular DDDR SDRAM in eight DIMM slots and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports for excellent networking capabilities. One scaleable node controller, four memory repeater hubs and two 32- bit PCI slots are also included. In addition, the i2DD8-G2 and the i2DM8-G2 feature onboard dual channel Ultra320 SCSI controllers. -- i2DMR-8G/i2DMR-iG2-Based on the E8870 chipset, the i2DMR-8G/i2DMR-iG2 has been optimized for 1U and 2U servers and features one P64H2 bridge controller and support for one 64-bit/133 MHz PCI-X slot. Both serverboards also offer support for up to 16 GB of regular DDDR SDRAM in eight DIMM slots and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports for excellent networking capabilities. One scaleable node controller and four memory repeater hubs are also included. In addition, the i2DMR-8G2 features an onboard dual channel Ultra320 SCSI controller.