Wall Street Journal: Sun Microsystems Shares New Chip Technology

Sun Microsystems Inc. said it will share technology associated with an unusual new microchip, making it easier for researchers and competitors to study and copy the product.

The UltraSparc T1 chip, used in new Sun servers announced Tuesday, has circuitry for eight microprocessors. Sun, which has previously helped other companies make original chip designs based on its technology, said it now also will share its own design along with rights to patents and other information that is normally kept confidential.

The UltraSparc T1 chip, used in new Sun servers announced Tuesday, has circuitry for eight microprocessors. Sun, which has previously helped other companies make original chip designs based on its technology, said it now also will share its own design along with rights to patents and other information that is normally kept confidential.

Scott McNealy, Sun's chief executive officer, compared the move to the information-sharing that has helped fuel open-source programs such as the Linux operating system. During a question-and-answer session following the server announcements, he was asked whether the move would make it possible for a competitor such as Intel Corp. to copy Sun's product.

"That would be cool," Mr. McNealy said.

Sun has chafed as some competitors and analysts have called Sparc chips "proprietary," even though it has tried to inspire others to design chips based on the technology. The company said the technology-sharing effort will begin in the first quarter of 2006. Mr. McNealy added that other details about what it is calling the "OpenSparc Project" will be finalized later, based on input from others in the industry.

Sun's Sparc chips are manufactured for the company by Texas Instruments Inc., and Sun officials did not discuss any change to that relationship.

Sun is trying to make a case that the T1 chip, and servers based on it, not only bring big performance benefits but also will save customers money on electricity and space, two design attributes that Sun executives believe will sweep the industry. Intel is already making chips with two processors, but Sun contends it is now far ahead of the chip giant and other competitors in pushing multi-processor chips.

The event included testimonials from customers and partners that include Symantec Corp., Electronic Data Systems Corp. and eBay Inc. Heather Peck, an eBay manager of systems engineering, said there was a lot of excitement at the online auctioneer over Sun's new technology compared with other server announcements in recent years. "There are completely new possibilities" with the new servers, she said.

In another development, software giant Oracle Corp. announced a pricing change that could help Sun.

The database maker normally charges a license fee for each processor on a chip, which would sharply raise the cost of running multiple programs on T1-based machines. As part of a special promotion, Oracle said it would charge one-quarter of its licensee fee for each processor, indicating that customers could run eight copies of its software on a T1-based server but only be charged for two copies.

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