Sun Microsystems is set to announce its UltraSparc IV+
microprocessor, the last significant upgrade to the company's
processor line before it begins shipping the redesigned chips it
calls "throughput computing" processors, and hands over the task of
building chips for the bulk of its systems to Fujitsu.
The UltraSparc IV+ will be Sun's first chip to be built with a
90-nanometer process technology and it will have a higher clock
speed and larger and more flexible memory caches than the current
generation of UltraSparc IV processors, said Dale Greenly, Sun's
director of engineering for UltraSparc IV+, who will be discussing
the new processor at the Fall Processor Forum.
"The biggest thing that we wanted to aim at was performance.
We're basically going to double application performance," he
said.
When the UltraSparc IV+ begins shipping in mid-2005, it will
have a clock speed of 1.8GHz, an increase over the 1.05GHz to
1.2GHz clock speeds available on UltraSparc IV. A later upgrade to
the processor will boost the chip's clock speed over 2GHz, Greenly
said.
Another difference will be the addition of a 2Mbytes on-chip
level 2 cache, where data can be stored and quickly accessed by the
processor. The new chip will also have a 32Mbytes off-chip cache,
which will be twice the size of the UltraSparc IV's off-chip memory
unit.
"What we've done is basically added another layer of cache and
brought that onboard," Greenly said.
Like the UltraSparc IV, the new processor will have two
processor cores built onto the same chip, but its memory interface
has been changed to support DDR (dynamic double rate) memory.
UltraSparc IV supports the less speedy SDRam (synchronous dynamic
Ram) memory.
The UltraSparc IV+ may be a necessary performance improvement
for Sun, but will not give Sun a performance lead over rival chip
makers like IBM or Intel, said Jonathan Eunice, an analyst with
Illuminata.
"This is a natural evolution of the UltraSparc IV, but I think
the big jumps for Sun, in terms of performance or system design,
come in the new Fujitsu generation or in the Niagara and Rock
generation," he said.
Niagara and Rock, are the codenames for the first two of Sun's
throughput computing processors. The first of these systems, based
on the 8-core Niagara processor, is expected to ship in 2006.
At the same time as Sun's throughput computing systems start
emerging, the company also expects to begin shipping systems based
on Fujitsu's Sparc64 VI processor, code named Olympus.
The dual-core Sparc64 VI will have a clock speed in excess of
2.4GHz and an on-chip L2 cache of 6Mbytes. Based on a 90nm process
technology, it will be followed in 2007 by a 65nm Sparc64+
processor, according to Fujitsu's website.
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service