* Sun’s latest processor, the last of the UltraSparc line
Sun last week unveiled its latest processor at In-Stat/MDR’s Fall Processor Forum in San Jose.
Called the UltraSparc IV+ and codenamed Panther, this processor is the last in a long line of UltraSparc processors from Sun. The company will continue processor development with Fujitsu on systems called Throughput Computing, based on Fujitsu’s Sparc64 technology.
The UltraSparc IV+ uses Chip Multithreading technology, which lets a large number of operations execute simultaneously to increase system performance. The processor is the second to use Sun’s dual-core design.
Unlike the UltraSparc IV, which uses the 130-nanometer manufacturing process, the UltraSparc IV+ uses Texas Instruments’ 90-nanometer technology, and can double throughput via expanded caches and buffers. In addition, the company has augmented the processor’s pre-fetch and computational abilities. The contrast between 130- and 90-nanometer is that five times as much circuitry and components can be placed on a single chip.
The UltraSparc IV+ has three levels of cache, including a 2M-byte L2 cache and a 32M-byte L3 cache. It will be available running at 1.8-GHz and have almost twice the per-thread performance of the UltraSparc IV processor.
The processor is binary-compatible with previous UltraSparc designs, allowing customers to easily migrate between systems.
The UltraSparc is expected to ship in the middle of 2005. While it will initially ship at 1.8 GHz, 2-GHz models are expected.
Sun’s UltraSparc processors compete with IBM’s Power processors and Intel’s Itanium servers.
While Sun canceled plans for the UltraSparc V, the company will develop new Sparc-based processors codenamed Niagara and Rock. Fujitsu will supply Sun with large multiprocessing machines.
Sun expects its Niagara server to be available in 2006 and its Rock servers in 2008.
