* Sun outlines processor roadmap, ditches UltraSparc V
Sun last week ditched plans for the upcoming UltraSparc V and dual-core Gemini processors. It will now continue to enhance the UltraSparc IV platform, while working on new processors codenamed Rock and Niagara.
Sun, which faces an $810 million loss this quarter and which will lay off as much as 9% of its workforce, dropped UltraSparc V development after spending a large amount of money on it. The company will shift engineers working on UltraSparc V to Rock and Niagara development.
Sun is betting its future on a concept called “throughput computing” – a new generation of processors that have multiple cores, are multithreaded and can run dozens of tasks concurrently.
UltraSparc V, codenamed Millennium, was originally intended to be a stopgap between UltraSparc IV and Niagara, which Sun expects to ship in early 2006. Rock will ship after.
These new processors will be Sparc-compatible, but may not use the UltraSparc name.
UltraSparc V would have been able to operate in two different modes – for multithreaded applications or for single-threaded database applications.
Rock and Niagara are multicore processors that will run multiple threads concurrently. Niagara will be designed for use in blade servers and networking gear; Rock will be used in high-end servers. Gemini was intended to be used in lower-end servers.
The Rock processor is expected to use technology from Afara Websystems, which Sun acquired in 2002. Sun will combine Afara’s technology with its own MAJC chip, which has been used as a graphics and Java accelerator. MAJC is Sun’s low-end multicore processor. Sun claims that Rock will run 30 times as fast as the 1.2-GHz UltraSparc III. It will remain binary-compatible with earlier Sparc-based systems.
Sun’s Rock systems are expected to compete with IBM’s Power4 processors and HP’s Precision-based systems.
