Sun Accelerates Growth of UltraSPARC(R) CMT Eco System; Releases
OpenSPARC(TM) T2 Processor RTL to Open Source Community and Joins Five
Major Universities in Launch of OpenSPARC Technology Centers of
Excellence
Free Download of World's First Eight Core, 64-Thread Processor Available
Today Under GPL License
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (Billboard Publicity Wire via Business Wire EON) December 11, 2007 --
Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:JAVA) today delivered on the commitment it
made in August by providing the OpenSPARC(TM) T2 RTL (register transfer
level) processor design to the free and open source community via the
GPL license. The OpenSPARC T2 processor is based on the UltraSPARC(R) T2
processor, the world's fastest commodity processor with eight cores and
eight threads per core running the Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System (OS).
Also today, Sun announced that five major universities are now official
OpenSPARC Technology Centers of Excellence: the University of
California, Santa Cruz; University of Texas, Austin; University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and
Carnegie Mellon University. Each Center of Excellence has a minimum
two-year commitment, during which time they'll execute chip design
research and course work based on Sun's chip multi-threading (CMT)
design.
In December 2005, Sun announced it would publish the specifics for the
UltraSPARC T1 processor, making it the first major processor design to
be offered to the open source community. And since the launch of the
OpenSPARC T1 processor in March 2006, over 6,500 copies of the OpenSPARC
T1 processor RTL have been downloaded worldwide. Through the OpenSPARC
technology program, Sun helps community members to build on proven
technology at a dramatically low cost, and helps to drive down the cost
of implementing designs into different technologies and products. The
OpenSPARC T1 and OpenSPARC T2 processor RTL files can be downloaded at www.opensparc.net.
“Open sourcing the UltraSPARC T1 processor
design was such a new concept it created some angst and a fair amount of
debate before we pulled the trigger,” said
David Yen, executive vice president of Sun Microelectronics. “But
there was no debate associated with T2; we've seen the success of open
sourcing hardware, and the interest it has created in the developer,
university and customer communities. The number of downloads have been
impressive and confident we're expanding the market for Sun technology.”
“Thanks to the T1 design and other tools
available to us through the Illinois Center of Excellence for OpenSPARC
technology, faculty and students are performing research on processor
reliability and architecture that would be impossible under any other
scenario,” said Josep Torrellas, professor of
computer science at the University of Illinois. “For
academics, this is an order of magnitude improvement in research tools.
Computer architecture researchers everywhere should check it out.”
Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program
OpenSPARC community has also been selected as part of Sun's Open Source
Community Innovation Awards Program. Announced last week, the multi-year
program is designed to foster innovation and recognize some of the most
interesting open source initiatives within Sun. Sun has selected six
communities for the program's first year: GlassFish(TM), NetBeans(TM),
OpenJDK(TM), OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris(TM) and OpenSPARC. Prizes are
expected to total at least $1 million (USD) a year.
Beginning mid-January 2008, the six open source communities will
announce the details around the individual programs. Each community will
have its own rules and judging criteria. Prize winners will be announced
in August 2008. To follow contest updates and major developments, visit: http://www.sun.com/opensource/awards
About The OpenSPARC T2 Processor
The commodity UltraSPARC T2 processor delivers a 64-way system on a
single chip. It's the industry's first processor to bring together the
key functions of multiple systems-virtualization, processing,
networking, security, floating point units and accelerated memory
access. With the UltraSPARC T2 processor Sun extended its lead in eco
performance by combining the industry’s
lowest power consumption with double the cores, 16 times the threads, 4
times the throughput, with on-chip network and security functionality.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
A singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer"[tm]
-- guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world's
most important markets. Sun's philosophy of sharing innovation and
building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing:
the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and
on the Web at sun.com.
Copyright 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Sun, Sun
Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, and The Network is The Computer are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the
United States and in other countries. All SPARC, OpenSPARC, GlassFish,
NetBeans, OpenJDK and UltraSPARC trademarks are used under license and
are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in
the US and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based
upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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