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t has been a long, strange road for Sun's
in-house SPARC CPU technology. Originally the replacement for the
Motorola processors used in early Sun servers and workstations, SPARC
was synonymous with the company for years, but the explosion in x86
architectures in high-end desktop and mid-range server settings made
Sun diversify, complementing its in-house SPARC development with
designs for Intel
and AMD chips as well. But the renaissance of the SPARC architecture
has seen Sun make a concerted effort to popularize the technology once
more, going so far as to release its recent "Niagara" UltraSPARC T1
design as a GPL project dubbed OpenSPARC,
a move which has attracted at least two third-party chip design firms
to participate and bake their own variation of the SPARC processor.
Code-name "Niagara 2" processor may get OpenSPARC treatment
It has been a long, strange road for Sun's
in-house SPARC CPU technology. Originally the replacement for the
Motorola processors used in early Sun servers and workstations, SPARC
was synonymous with the company for years, but the explosion in x86
architectures in high-end desktop and mid-range server settings made
Sun diversify, complementing its in-house SPARC development with
designs for Intel
and AMD chips as well. But the renaissance of the SPARC architecture
has seen Sun make a concerted effort to popularize the technology once
more, going so far as to release its recent "Niagara" UltraSPARC T1
design as a GPL project dubbed OpenSPARC,
a move which has attracted at least two third-party chip design firms
to participate and bake their own variation of the SPARC processor.
Now that SPARC is rejuvenated, the company has turned its efforts
towards the next generation, code-named Niagara 2, a chip expected to
deliver twice the performance of the current Niagara line with a number
of integrated convenience functions for encryption and networking.
Systems derived from Niagara 2 processors may begin appearing as soon
as the end of 2007.
Comments attributed to Sun's microelectronics sales head David Yen
indicated that the company is considering releasing the Niagara 2
designs to the open source community as well. According to a Sun
spokesperson reached today, open-sourcing Niagara 2 is a "goal... not a
done deal." Encryption export restrictions and other intellectual
property concerns around Niagara 2 could entangle the OpenSPARC
process-as could Sun's financial interest in being the exclusive
provider of Niagara 2 systems for a time. But the company seems willing
to declare OpenSPARC an early success, rather than an abandoned
experiment.
Read the original article: http://www.itpro.co.uk/internet/news/112968/sun-mulling-opensource-status-for-latest-cpu-design.html
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