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Sun Microsystems has established a Center of Excellence at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, that will focus on the OpenSPARC
initiative, a true "open-source" approach to high-speed microprocessor
technology. The Center of Excellence establishes a collaborative
partnership between Sun and UCSC faculty who are working with the
OpenSPARC community.
Sun Microsystems has established a Center of Excellence at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, that will focus on the OpenSPARC
initiative, a true "open-source" approach to high-speed microprocessor
technology. The Center of Excellence establishes a collaborative
partnership between Sun and UCSC faculty who are working with the
OpenSPARC community.
"UCSC is truly pioneering a new approach to processor development by
leveraging open source technologies to drive innovation," said Kim
Jones, vice president of global education and sales at Sun. "We
anticipate that their efforts will not only deliver great benefits to
the OpenSPARC community, but also positively impact the future course
of how all microprocessors are designed."
The OpenSPARC initiative began in 2006 when Sun released the
underlying design of its UltraSparc T1 processor (also known as
"Niagara") under the terms of a General Public Licence (GPL). The move
extends to chip design the basic concept of open-source software, which
makes the underlying source code for a software program freely
available so that other software developers can modify and improve the
program.
With OpenSPARC, the idea is that releasing the hardware source code
of the processor (known as the RTL) will enable software developers to
create innovative derivatives, tools, and applications faster and with
a higher degree of hardware integration than ever before, while
providing unique, high-value solutions for specific markets. As of
February 25, 2007, there have been more than 4,500 downloads of the
OpenSPARC T1 RTL.
UC Santa Cruz is the first OpenSPARC Center of Excellence. Jose
Renau, an assistant professor of computer engineering at UCSC, serves
on the OpenSPARC community governance board.
"We have several projects at UCSC that are relevant to OpenSPARC.
The Center of Excellence will advance our work in this area by
strengthening our relationship with Sun," Renau said.
Renau's expertise is in computer architecture and microprocessor
design. His projects include an architectural simulator that models a
wide set of architectures and can be used for SPARC simulation. This
and other projects will benefit from Sun servers and other equipment
obtained through the Center of Excellence, Renau said. New equipment
will also allow Renau and other faculty to use OpenSPARC in various
computer engineering courses.
Read the original article: http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=1072
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