Allan Strong been working on Niagara since early 2001, when he was VP of VLSI in Afara WebSystems. Niagara was a bit different then as it designed for 130nm TSMC process running Linux instead of the current Niagara which is designed for a 90nm TI process running Solaris 10.

Sun bought Afara in July 2002, and Allan is now director of the Niagara CPU. He is also responsible for two of the follow-on CPUs in the Niagara CPU family.

Here's how he views the OpenSPARC project:

"I think that Sun is truly interested in developing a community around open SPARC hardware. Sun has found that opening up Solaris has been very beneficial for customers as well as for Sun. The chip multi threading capability embodied by Niagara is very advanced relative to any other chip on the marketplace and has allowed its products to have incredible advantages in performance, power, and space. It is revolutionary and "here to stay". It is commendable that Sun is willing to contribute this "jewel" to other community members who don't have the money to re-research and re-develop breakthroughs like this.

I'd like to see the community take this design and mold it into areas which could benefit from the high throughput and high quality design but are not coverred by any other product. I'd like to see innovations which use massive threads in ways never imagined before. I'd like to see the community build components, processes, tools, IP, etc. around this which makes it even easier to make a Sparc product for any application."

In his spare time, Allan enjoys tennis, coaching soccer, playing hockey (he once tried out for the 1980 Olympic hockey team), and doing activities with my four kids.