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Sun to Merge UltraSPARC with Fujitsu's SPARC64?
Waldmeister writes "The Register has a story from a japanese source, that Sun and Fujitsu are planning to combine their Unix server businesses. Even if Sun doesn't comment on this, they acknowledge that Scott McNealy met Fujitsu's CEO this week. If this will happen, Fujitsu will get the bigger chunk of manufacturing and engineering. With the PrimePower systems outperforming Sun's SunFire systems for some time now, this sounds reasonable, too. And it gives Sun the chance to more resources to extend their Linux and x86 business." There's also a Reuters story.
I believe that TI and Sun had developed a relationship with TI's production of the 90-nanometer chips.
Anyway, there is no doubt that the relationship between TI and Sun has been locked in for a long time. Sun breaking away from TI would most likely be very damaging to TI.
It does seem like Fujitsu has the edge with
their SparcGP4 chip...
CINT2000
Company System Results #CPU
Fujitsu Limited PRIMEPOWER650 (1350MHz) 905 776 1
Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V880 (1050MHz) 626 560 1
CFP2000
Fujitsu Limited PRIMEPOWER650 (1350MHz) 1340 1096 1
Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V880(1200MHz) 1082 923 1
Actually, it would appear to accelerate those
plans:
Sparc 64 Roadmap writeup
Won't. Fujitsu is doing the multi-core thing too.
SPARC64 chips outperform Ultra in many ways,
o 6 way pipelineing instructions
o hardware instruction retry
o ECache ECC
MHz for MHz, Fujitsu SPARC is about 30% faster than
Sun SPARC.
more reliable too.
Sun may not have a focused Linux strategy, but you can bet that Fujitsu does. In addition to the PrimePower line of SPARC-based servers, they have their Primergy line of Intel-based servers that can easily run Linux. Fujitsu's Linux strategy hasn't been well defined yet, but they would be remiss to not jump on that bandwagon ASAP.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
There's no reason why TI couldn't keep making the UltraSPARC IIi, IIe, II, III Cu, IIIi, IV, IVi CPUs for quite some time, as the UltraSPARC installed base is very large. Chips like the IIi and IIIi probably give TI much more volume in the long term than the III Cu, anyway. If Sun and TI do break up it would be more of a weaning than a pushing overboard in the Arctic.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
UltraSPARC not 64 bit? Since when? We have Ultra1 machines running Solaris in 64 bit mode. SPARC was 32 bit, UltraSPARC is 64!
Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.
Solaris 2 (SunOS 5.*): SysV
Nice try.
Now, SUNW is conceding the market for high-end servers.
SUNW recently purchased Afara. It supplies processors for low-end servers. SUNW will still try to maintain a presence there. Unfortunately, with the SPARC64 going to 4 cores per die and 2 threads per core, the processor from Afara is starting to look less and less competitive. SUNW will exit the market for even low-end servers by 2007.
The announcement of Power5, with its SMT capabilities, is tantamount to announcing a starship for intergalatic space travel when all the spacecraft in the Federation can only travel within the solar system. Power5 and, to a lesser extent, SPARC64 basically killed the UltraSPARC line and the entire hardware business of the Sun Microsystems.
By the way, Professor Susan Eggers of the University of Washington must be tickled pink because she development most of the technology for simultaneous multithreading. IBM, with its Power5, proved that her ideas were all right. The Draper prize in engineering should be going her way.