SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.- Sun Microsystems, Inc. is demonstrating a
supercooled engineering workstation at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in
San Francisco this week. The system uses speed-sorted UltraSPARCTM II processors
and supercooling technology to achieve 500 MHz performance. The system will be on
display all week at Sun's booth (#618).
"This system is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can do with
the UltraSPARC platform," said Genelle Trader, senior director of product
marketing for Workstation Products at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "We have a lot
of headroom with this technology. With the UltraSPARC processor and SolarisTM operating
environment, we offer robust, scalable platforms for technical systems that can
take us well into the next century."
The system on display at DAC is based on a Sun UltraTM 60 workstation and uses cryogenic
cooling technology to achieve super performance from its UltraSPARC II CPU. This
technology from KryoTech, Inc. cools the processor to -40C, enabling the system
to run well-known design applications 30 to 50 percent faster than a production
Ultra 60 workstation.
With this experimental workstation, Sun is demonstrating the power and potential
of the UltraSPARC platform. The UltraSPARC III processor, the third generation of
this high-performance product line, will debut at 600MHz without requiring any
special cooling techniques. The UltraSPARC III is highly scalable, enabling systems
using up to 1000+ processors while maintaining complete Solaris operating environment
and application software compatibility.
"The 600MHz target frequency of the UltraSPARC-III represents a very significant
step forward for Sun and UltraSPARC," said Andrew Allison, industry analyst
and publisher of Inside The New Computer Industry. "This frequency should translate
to very competitive systems in the future."
Performance Results
In internal tests at Sun, the demonstration system ran well-known design automation
applications more than 50 percent faster than an Ultra 60 workstation with a 300
MHz UltraSPARC II processor. In comparison to the Ultra 60 with a 300 MHz processor
and 2 MB cache, the supercooled Ultra 60 with 2MB cache averaged 51% better performance
running models developed by Sun on Cadence Verilog-XL, 53% better performance running
PTC's Pro/ENGINEER, and 55% better performance running EDS Unigraphics Solutions.
In similar tests against a 360 MHz Ultra 60 with 4 MB cache, the supercooled Ultra
60 (still with only 2 MB cache) averaged 31% better performance running Synopsys
Design Compiler, 29% better performance running Avant! HSPICE, 32% better performance
running EDS Unigraphics Solutions, and 25% better performance running PTC's Pro/ENGINEER.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The ComputerTM,"
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 World Wide
Web at http://sun.com. @Macarlo, Inc. @Macarlo's Shareware & Web OS/2 Java Lobby Member
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