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Jonathan Schwartz Shows 32-Way UltraSPARC Chip

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the much-that-is-hidden dept.

Megaslow writes "The latest entry in Jonathan Schwartz's blog has pictures of Sun's Project Niagra chip, with 8 cores * 4 threads per core for a 32-way computer on single chip. He also shows what looks to be a test rig reportedly already up and running Solaris 10."

14 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. solaris fan by BoldAC · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Okay, I am a solaris/sun fan boy. But this sounds like it was crafted by a professional commerical writer...

    Ahhh... to be 38 and be this guy. President of Sun at 38 years old... what a life.


    This is the silicon for our Project Niagara chip: 8 cores * 4 threads per core = a 32-way computer. On a chip.
    And did I mention we have silicon, and not just a JPEG file?
    And I saved the best for last. Are you ready?
    It's already running Solaris. A volume OS that eats threads for lunch, on the world's most advanced massively parallelized silicon.
    That's not just a box.
    That's what we call a system. A system built for internet workloads. Not for the expedience of a press release. And a system that gives customers yet more choice, rather than taking choice away.
    (And before you ask, yes, we are planning a nicer box when we ship :)

    These guys deserve to Microsoft level of success...

    Several of sun gurus have given us suggestions and hints at solaris section of our site. Without their early input and links from within the sun website, we would have never been as successful.

    These guys are trying to do things big and correctly.

    1. Re:solaris fan by AlexTheBeast · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It does read like a commerical... ... a commerical against IBM.


      I'm watching with amusement as IBM prepares to stub its toe with their new, curiously named "OpenPower" low-end boxes.

      Now, I will freely admit I am entirely confused by what they're doing. Why on earth would you ship a proprietary computer that doesn't run your own operating system (AIX)? If I were trying to freak out my installed base, that's exactly what I'd do.

      These guys are attacking IBM (and linux?) directly. The first part of his blog is a calculated attack against IBM--step by step he breaks down IBM's strategy. Just when you are wondering why you ever thought about using IBM, he introduces his new baby. He must have spent hours crafting this blog post.

      Yes, it's a commerical.

      I just can't believe that blog posts are this important now. I remember when we would just finger the inside guys we knew to see the plan. Now, it's been turned around into a commerical like everything else.

    2. Re:solaris fan by jeif1k · · Score: 3, Interesting

      However, it's hard for me to understand how a chip can have bloat? The bigger and faster and more the chip does, the better! Right?

      One of the biggest bottlenecks in computers is the interface between the CPU and memory. It makes little sense to make the CPU so fast that it requires data faster than the memory system can provide it. So, 32-way CPU may, in fact, not be much faster than a single or dual core CPU when you build a real computer running real applications around it. Even if it turns out to be significantly faster, there may be other, simpler, cheaper ways of achieving the same speedup.

      Based on the presentation in the blog, Niagara sounds just like more of Sun's "bigger is better" attitude, as opposed to sound cost/benefit tradeoffs. Keep in mind that the blog brags about the fact that Niagara is "32-way", not that it were faster than the best PowerPC chip.

      Whether Sun's chip actually delivers good bang for the buck remains to be seen. I don't think any of Sun's recent machines have delivered good bang for the buck, so I won't be holding my breath (we used to be a big Sun customer but haven't bought any Sun hardware for several years now).

      Even most main stream linux distros are bloated compared to a few years ago.

      Linux distros, yes. The Linux kernel is still being kept fairly lean feature-wise relative to Solaris or NT (it just has lots of drivers and loadable add-ons).

  2. /. article. But a 32 way processor? by tod_miller · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can see these lovely ladies being applied to some serious film fx... I wonder what kind of advantages these systems would give to rendering houses, or is the cost of these for farming cpu power too high, and there is more bang for using Durons?

    I guess this differs based on each application and resource requirements.

    Still, nice.

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
  3. Sun is doing what they do best by sofakingon · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Sun is back to doing what they do best, designing extremely reliable , high-performance hardware. I really do hope they can adapt their business model VERY soon. I know that the mission critical systems and workstations at my place of employment DONT use x86 hardware and/or M$ products- but then again there are how many people with Solaris experience and certifican VS the M$ crowd (myself included)? On the flip side, we don't need all of a 2 story building to house a classroom for MS training because everyone already knows Windows (in theory at least).

    Maybe the open sourcing of Solaris will help them pool their resources better and re-direct their efforts?

  4. What is Open? by peterdaly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does Johnathan not get it, or is he playing the FUD game? The IBM Open chip is not a chip without an OS. It runs linux...a commodity OS. That means two major things.

    1. People who run Linux on a different box may be more likley to upgrade to the Open chip since they won't have to take an OS change into account as well.

    2. People not happy with big blue can migrate to another vendor without having to take an OS change into account. That means less lock in.

    Sun doesn't get it. Or more likley they do, but don't want to help their customers figure it out.

    -Pete

    --
    Soccer Goal Plans
  5. Not that great.. by jjeffrey · · Score: 2, Interesting
    It only helps if you have a very parallel application that is enormously heavier on CPU cycles than on disk or anything else - there aren't many like that.

    Also, I think it's quite funny that blogs.sun.com seems to have been slashdotted...

    1. Re:Not that great.. by Daniel+Ellard · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It only helps if you have a very parallel application that is enormously heavier on CPU cycles than on disk or anything else - there aren't many like that.

      Too bad TFA is slashdotted... the point is not parallel applications, it's applications with lots of threads. If you're putting together a service nicely decomposes into lots of threads (i.e., lots of httpd's) then this is very nice -- lots of threads running side by side, no context switches...

      --
      Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
    2. Re:Not that great.. by mestlick · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Each of those 32 threads is not going to be very fast.

      These chips will not be used for databases or scientific computing where you would like high single thread performance.

      They will be used for web servers and the like, where you have lots of users hammering on one server.

  6. something for google? by kc_cyrus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google's architecture might play well with this design with lots of processors in a dense package with relatively good power efficiency per processor.

  7. Software licensing by Mark+Round · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What will be interesting is how the software market adjusts to these multi-core processors becoming more widespread and popular (particularly with dual-core Opteron on the way). They're going to have to rethink things a bit with regards per-processor licensing. From what I recall, Oracle (and many others) consider a dual-core processor two separate processors, and charge accordingly. Anyone running one of these chips would then get stung for a 8 (or possibly 32) processor license.

    Perhaps a better solution would be to adopt the approach taken by IDC (which Sun obviously seem quite happy to back) of counting processor sockets, instead of cores.

    Anyone know what other software companies are planning on doing with their per-processor licensing ?

    -Mark

  8. That's just 31 more ways the machine can fail... by march · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's just 31 more ways the machine can fail... Have you noticed how the reliability of Sun's hardware has really fallen off in the past few years? I have an SS2 from '95 that is still runnnig (a seti@home client) and has not failed a single time from hardware (other than the initial Quantum disk going dead). At work, there is a hardware failure almost every day. Granted, we have a lot of Sun's, but still...

  9. Re:That's just 31 more ways the machine can fail.. by HalfFlat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But you have to remember, the Sparcstation 2 was pretty special. One of the best workstations produced ... ever.

    Sun may still have good server hardware -- it's been a while since I've had to deal with it -- but as far as workstations are concerned, I don't think they've ever matched what they achieved with the SS2, compared with the contemporary competition.

    And it even looked good.

  10. "That's what we call a system" by jackrd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If that's what they call a system, remind me not to call them; I prefer mine functional. There's no RAM, no expansion cards, and it doesn't look as if there's any CPU installed. If it's "already running Solaris" why don't they show a picture of it running Solaris? "Not for the expedience of a press release." Of course not...they just...didn't want to risk blowing everyone's minds with how amazing they are...yeah...that's the ticket. For as cocky as he is when he talks about IBM's advertising, he doesn't do much better.

    Also, is it just me, or can that chip fit in the socket 4 different ways? As far as I can tell it's not keyed, unless that gold circle in the upper right is a pin. I guess they trust people to go by the corner that's shaved off.