Sun kondigt UltraSPARC III aan

Sun Microsystems heeft een nieuwe generatie UltraSPARC processors aangekondigd. De UltraSPARC III zal geïntroduceerd worden op kloksnelheden van 600 en 750MHz en kan met maximaal 1000 soortgenoten gecombineerd worden in extreem schaalbare multiprocessing systemen:

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW - news) today announced that the technology inherent in its new UltraSPARC(TM) III microprocessor will make a strong contribution to the performance of its new Solaris(TM) 8.0 Operating Environment.
The 64-bit UltraSPARC III chip, which will be available in both 600 MHz and 750 MHz versions, contains numerous enhancements to the basic SPARC(TM) architecture that idealize its performance to meet the urgent demands of the Internet-driven e-business applications. At the same time, the UltraSPARC III processor preserves investments in application software by delivering full binary compatibility with previous versions of SPARC chips, both 32-bit and 64-bit.
The UltraSPARC III processor offers significant design innovations in massive multiprocessing, non-uniform memory access (NUMA), high-bandwidth memory I/O and Scalable Shared Memory (SSM). The UltraSPARC III processor is built with reliability, availability, scalability and serviceability in mind, all of which are critical in networked e-commerce environments that demand the ability to handle massive numbers of data transactions on a continuous basis.
The design features of the Solaris 8.0 Operating Environment allow the operating system to see and understand hundreds of processes running on multiple UltraSPARC III processors as a single system image. The CPU, which has full support for NUMA-based systems, is able to handle non-uniform memory accesses that allow the operating system to take advantage of the CPU's multi-processing and multi-threading features. The Solaris 8.0 Operating Environment features a many-to-many threading scheme, which inherently makes it more scalable.
The Solaris 8.0 Operating Environment's 64-bit software environment enables superior execution of many types of applications, and the CPU capitalizes on this advantage through its built-in memory controller. This supports high-bandwidth memory access with peak memory and I/O bandwidths of 2.4 Gb/sec, which contributes substantially to optimizing system-level performance.
The UltraSPARC III microprocessor features Scalable Shared Memory (SSM), which provides system coherency across all processors. With SSM, systems with the UltraSPARC III processor can quickly expand from just a few processors to hundreds without having to rewrite applications or use extensive additional circuitry. The Solaris Operating Environment has been designed since its inception for scalability. The Solaris Operating Environment is the ideal operating environment to take full advantage of SSM.
About Sun's UltraSPARC III Processor
The UltraSPARC III microprocessor represents Sun's next generation of processors with the application performance, bandwidth and scalability that make it the ideal engine for dot-com businesses. The UltraSPARC III processor is capable of up to 1,000-way scalability for performance-critical scalable enterprise computing applications. Sun's newest processor offering is backed by an 11-year Sun SPARC processor history with more than five years in 64-bit computing, and is enhanced by a roadmap carrying the processor architecture into 2002 at up to 1.0 GHz. [break] Meer info over het UltraSPARC chippie vind je bij Ace's Hardware en Forbes.com Volgens dit artikel van Forbes zal de UltraSPARC III voor het eind van de eerste helft van 2000 in volume produktie gaan. Vlak daarna zal de produktie overgaan op een 0,14micron proces: [/break] The new 64-bit chip, running at 600 MHz, will be manufactured on a 0.18-micron process, and would be quickly transitioned to newer technologies such as the 0.14-micron. A micron is one thousandth of the thickness of human hair.
Gallagher [Sun] brags that UltraSPARC III will be so far ahead of its competitors that others will be playing catch-up for some time. "We have been doing 64-bit computing since 1994, and we have all the applications and others software already in place, which makes upgrade to UltraSPARC III a very smooth transition," says Gallagher.
For instance, he points out that the new chip's core instruction set has been extended to include graphics instructions that provide the most common operations related to two-dimensional image processing, two/three-dimensional graphics and image compression algorithms, and parallel operations on pixel data with 8-and 16-bit components. This feature alone would give Sun's machines an entry into newer markets, where graphical-excellence is of utmost importance.

Sun kondigt UltraSPARC III aan

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