SPARCTM continues to be the flagship processor for SunTM.Delivering 64bit performance
for 3+ years and through two generations,Sun'sUltraSPARCTM continues to be fully compatible
along its entire roadmap, protecting customer investments well into the future.
SPARC provides:
Processor scalability for reduced complexity and increased efficiency
Binary compatibility to protect customer investments
Performance and economy
Long-term thrivability
The SPARC architecture enables a unique combination of semiconductor and design
scalability. With its multiprocessor capabilities, high bandwidth support, and register
window design, the SPARC design allows implementations through a range of price/performance
levels. Sun's UltraSPARCTM II processor currently enables cost-effective sever solutions from
single processor servers to the mainframe-class Enterprise 10000 Starfire System
with up to 64 processors. The next generation UltraSPARCTM III will power the most widely
available applications two to three times faster than before and scale up to over
1,000 processors in the very near future.
The first SPARC chips were designed over 10 years ago with scalability and networking
in mind. Today, Sun's UltraSPARC is the only processor that provides the scalability
necessary to provide the best price/performance ratio in the mid-range to high end
server marketplace.
Processor scalability reduces
complexity and increases efficiency
Simply put, this is the key reason Sun will continue to develop
its UltraSPARC family of microprocessors on the SPARC architecture. Sun's UltraSPARC
processor is widely recognized as the most scalable microprocessor in the industry.
"SPARC" is actually an acronym for "Scalable Processor ARChitecture,"
and Sun's UltraSPARC processor scales to multiple processors more effectively than
any other processor on the market.
Sun's first SPARC processors were released ten years ago.
Applications that were written for that processor still run on Sun's latest 360
MHz UltraSPARC II processor. This exact same application will run on Sun's next
generation UltraSPARC III processor at 600+ MHz.
Any new microprocessor architecture requires extensive, ongoing, simultaneous verification
testing at each level of design, to ensure the source
code is still functioning accurately. This intense level of testing at every phase
of development is crucial to ensure that the end result product will be bug-free
and functional. The verification testing necessary for Merced is three-fold that
of any other design - everything has to be backwards compatible to support x86/32bit
as well as x86/64-bit and the Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC standard. Because Sun has
been making 64-bit chips for years, thousands of verification diagnostic tests already
exist for any new generation of UltraSPARC.
Currently over 12,000 applications are in mission-critical deployments on SPARC
processors. Every one of these applications will run without modification on Sun's
next generation UltraSPARC III processor. Sun's UltraSPARC III is an evolutionary
progression in the SPARC architecture; even most of the underlying operating system
code will run without modification.
Performance and Economy
Performance. If we seem a bit obsessive about it, consider
for a moment the environment in which UltraSPARC processors thrive. In workstations,
servers, hubs, routers, and switches. From the massive high-compute demands of the
telecommunications industry to the media-intensive network needs of the enterprise.
With its simplified instruction set, SPARC processors achieve a higher number of
instructions per second with fewer transistors. Simplicity of design is the cornerstone
for SPARC, allowing shorter development cycles, smaller die sizes and ever-increasing
performance.
Long-term thrivabilit
of SPARC
Sun has increased its commitment to SPARC tremendously over
the last few years and introduced a number of derivative products based on SPARC,
like the UltraSPARC IIi. Sun is well on its way to delivering the next generation
UltraSPARC III, which will scale up to 1000 processors and deliver full binary compatibily
well before Merced arrives in the marketplace.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The
Network Is The Computer
TM," has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), to its position
as a leading provider of high-quality hardware, software and services for
establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the
Internet. With more than $9 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in
more than 150 countries and on the WorldWide Web at http://sun.com. @Macarlo, Inc. @Macarlo's Shareware & Web OS/2 Java Lobby Member
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