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OpenSPARC.net is the genesis of a vision by engineers, technologists, evangelists, and executives at Sun Microsystems, Inc. to create a larger community where open conversations and collaborative development projects spawn dramatic innovations around chip design. Individual programmers as well as representatives from Universities, industry associations, supporting software companies, foundries, entrepreneurs, large corporations and visionaries have already begun to participate in this expanded community.
SPARC stands for Scalable Processor ARchitecture. The technology is based on pioneering research around RISC at the University of California, Berkeley. It has been the basis of Sun's premiere line of servers since its introduction the Sun 4/260 and 4/280, in mid-1987 and then as the Campus-1 "pizza box" in 1989. That year, Sun transferred the ownership of the SPARC specifications to SPARC International, who continues to license the technology and manage compliance testing for the trademark today. SPARC has had a long history of openness. Take a look at Dawn of OpenSPARC.
Goals of the OpenSPARC Initiative
- To significantly increase participation in processor
architecture development and application design by making cutting-edge
hardware intellectual property freely available.
- To eliminate barriers to the next big build-out of the Internet.
- To improve collaboration and cooperation among hardware designers.
- To enable community members to build on proven technology at a markedly lower cost.
- To encourage innovation.
- To foster bringing bold new products to market.
What OpenSPARC Means to You
- As a developer
Opening the UltraSPARC T1 & UltraSPARC T2 source code lets developers create innovative software applications faster, and with a higher degree of hardware integration than ever before. Software developers will now be able to create highly optimized applications that are tightly integrated with the hardware, creating unique, high-value solutions for specific markets.
- As a customer
Opening the UltraSPARC T1 & UltraSPARC T2 source code helps create an environment that will speed the development of new, thread-rich applications. Customers will enjoy more choices and shorter development cycles.
- As an OEM
Opening the UltraSPARC T1 & UltraSPARC T2 source code gives OEMs the opportunity to create unique solutions built on a proven architecture. OEM's can apply their expertise in hardware design to create new, high-value solutions for specific customers and markets rapidly.
- As a foundry or silicon provider
A 64-bit, Chip Multi-threaded (CMT), SPARC architecture design point is now freely available for innovation and quick productization.
- As a student or professor in academia
A modern, real (not "toy") design -- OpenSPARC can boot real off-the-shelf commercial operating systems (e.g.Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD). Use a real design for your study or research.
Join us - take part in new synergies that take place, and contribute to new solutions as they unfold. Help us stretch existing technology into the next generation. The more time and energy you have to interact with opensparc.net community members, the more exposure you'll gain among your peers. The return investment can come in a variety of ways, including the reputation you or your organization earn through leadership roles and contributions to the site and, perhaps more importantly, the market pulse and community needs you discover and leverage.
Testimonials
See what people have said about OpenSPARC.
Get involved
There are many different ways that individuals, companies, universities, existing communities, and other organizations can become involved in OpenSPARC.net.
Spread the Word
It's time to open doors to collaboration around chip design. Help spread the word OpenSPARC.net is a home for making this happen.
- Link your site to OpenSPARC.net.
- List your product or service in our community marketplace.
- "Talk" with your peers by joining a mailing list or forums.
- Submit an article using our contact form and we'll consider posting it on our site.
- Please forward any suggestions for content you might have to: using our contact form. Features in opensparc.net are not limited to traditional articles. They can be code reviews, summaries of interesting conversations, or repurposed presentations, forums, or polls.
Learn from the real chip
Explore the code that works. Learn techniques that have been tested to create low-power, highly productive chips.
Contribute to a new real chip
Take the code, implement your ideas, and propose a new design. Today's UltraSPARC solution is just the beginning....
- Float your ideas
Join the announcement and/or the general mailing list. Or if you're interested in a particularly project, join the project mailing list. Write a blog related to opensparc and send an email to:
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to request your page to be listed.
- Post your notes
If you are studying chip design at a university or research lab, and you have some interesting notes, post them to the forums, post them to the wiki and/or submit them to the University Page by using our contact form.
- Contribute your code
If you have some code - either binary or source - that others can use, submit your contribution to the Cool Tools project. Remember, you must provide a license for the code and agree to the Terms of Participation. If your contribution includes source code, you must also sign a Contributor Agreement.
- Join a project
Take a look our projects and join one.
- Start a project
Do you have project already started or an idea for one that is related/connected to OpenSPARC, then we have a place where we can host it for you. Take a look at Starting a project.
- Contribute to the OpenSPARC Book Project
We are in the process of developing an open book on the OpenSPARC T1. The intention of this open
book is to assist the OpenSPARC development community by describing the
OpenSPARC T1 in detail. We have an outline started, but we need more
contributors. Join the OpenSPARC book project: http://wiki.opensparc.net.
- Share your Course Material
Collaborate and share course material related to OpenSPARC, chip multi-threading, multi-core in many areas including hardware design, design tools, CMT Architecture, software systems design, operating systems, concurrent computing and other related areas. We're looking for professors who have a passion for teaching and contributing to their field of study by sharing their course material with others. Take a look at site we are developing and the course materials already available: http://wiki.opensparc.net/bin/view.pl/CourseMaterial.
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