* Marvell, Sun in deal
Sun this week struck a deal with network chip maker Marvell, in which Marvell will license Sun’s Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology.
The news comes on the heels of a renewed focus at Sun on silicon design. To that end, Sun last week formed a Microelectronics group. This group will supply chips to Sun for its systems, but will also supply OEM customers. It will be headed by executive vice president David Yen, who previously led Sun’s storage business.
This week, the Microelectronics group went to Marvell to actually build the 10 Gigabit Ethernet silicon it has developed. Marvell will build specific products for Sun using the technology, the companies said.
Sun bills its Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology as “the industry’s first network interface designed to optimize throughput between multithreaded processors and the network.” It also claims the technology “represents the highest throughput 10 Gig E technology available today.”
The technology is a multithreaded, high-performance interface intended to help multi-core, multithreaded processors connect with 10Gbps networks. It uses multiple DMA channels to reduce the load on the system CPU for processing I/O. Sun says the technology was tested to improve the performance of applications on its own systems by up to four times the company’s current network interfaces.
Sun is looking at Marvell’s agreement as an endorsement of its technology – and even of its strategy to create the Microelectronics group. The company pushed that angle hard in its announcement; clearly, Sun is looking for validation.
Sun and Marvell hinted at further collaboration on network silicon – on 10GBase-T, 40Gbps Ethernet (even though no standard is expected for that speed) and 100Gbps Ethernet.
