Sun Microsystems is to make the designs of its new
UltraSparc T1 server processors open source in an attempt to win
greater support for its hardware in the developer
community.
Specifications for the Sparc chip family have previously been
available to those who pay a licensing fee to the company, but Sun
now plans to release both the specs and the designs, written in the
Verilog hardware description language, for free.
These will be accompanied by a verification suite and simulation
models. The information will be distributed by the newly set up
OpenSparc group in the first quarter of 2006.
Sun’s main Solaris operating system is already open-source and
the company recently made most of its server software open source
too.
The latest open-source announcement from Sun came as the company
launched its first servers using the energy-efficient and
multi-tasking UltraSparc T1 chips, previously code-named
“Niagara”.
Each UltraSparc T1 chip has eight processing cores which can run
up to a total of 32 simultaneous instruction sequences. The whole
chip consumes a maximum of 72 watts, which is less than comparable
solutions from Intel. Intel’s Xeon consumes between 100 and 165
watts.
The new server processor is competing against similar enterprise
processors from IBM, Intel and AMD. Sun hopes the new processor
will help stall its server sales decline, which has seen it fall
back in terms of market share against the top three of HP, Dell and
IBM.
The new T2000 server launched this week starts at £4,600 and
goes up to £15,300. The T1000 will arrive in the first quarter of
next year and will cost between £1,800 and £6,500.