Sun Open-Sourcing UltraSPARC Design

AKAImBatman writes "While everyone was busy with the holiday season, Sun Microsystems quietly announced the start of the OpenSPARC project. Unlike previous CPUs that were based on the "Open" SPARC specifications (such as LEON), Sun is releasing the complete Verilog source code to their latest and greatest microprocessor. Their current time frame for releasing the source code to the public is in March of 2006. Given their success with the OpenSolaris project, it seems that this is likely to be more than just vaporware. So get out your Virtex FPGAs and your Verilog compilers, and let's get ready to hack some hardware!"

Comments

Pardon my ignorance...

[Anonymous Coward]

But what are some other examples of open source hardware? How practical is this approach to hardware? I don't mean things like "get iron hot, add carbon, make steel" but more high tech stuff.

Implementability

[Skowronek]

There are some questions. FPGAs aren't that big... a XC2V6000 that costs $4500 is about the right size for four cores of a simple 4-SIMD 24bit fixed-point signal processor - a UltraSPARC will not fit in it, unless it's seriously cut down.

Also speed of FPGAs is a huge let-down, unless a design takes advantage of their structure. There is no reason to believe that the processor will be designed for FPGAs... It is likely to be therefore very slow, even if you can implement it.

Re:Implementability

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't seem to know what Verilog is. It's not just for implementing something on an FPGA but it's for specifying an ASIC too.
That means that if Sun really releases the source under an open license Dell can go to some chip fab with Sun's source and make Sparcs too.

Re:Implementability

[Jerry Coffin]

Parent should be modded up -- there haven't been many other intelligent comments on this story.

Contrary to TFA's claim, I suspect for a lot of people, Sun's previous attempt at open-sourcing a core (to the microSPARC) would be a lot more interesting if you wanted to put the design on an FPGA (unfortunately, I'm not at all sure this is still available). I'm not sure how well it would work on an FPGA either, but at least it stands a whole lot better chance, and it's probably still plenty of CPU for most typical FPGA-based designs.

Then again, www.opencores.org, www.fpga4fun.com, etc., already have quite a number of CPU cores available, many without the likelihood of patent problems, and such that are likely to accompany using a SPARC core. Better still, quite a few of these have already been tested in various FPGAs and a few have been put into ASICs as well.

--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

ok, I'm convinced

[iggymanz]

open source or not, these coolthreads processors are the first thing from Sun that looks exciting in the last six years. Finally, some leadership. Too late?

Re:ok, I'm convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun has systems based on the UltraSPARC-T1 and they're available right now starting under $3000. Their throughput and performance for multithreaded applications is simply staggering. In fact, the top-of-the-line Sun Fire T2000 server based on this processor is about $6000 less than the comparably-equipped Dell PowerEdge 6850 (which is the best that we could find from them) and our performance tests with real-world applications show the T2000 providing well over twice the performance while drawing well under half the power and taking half the space (2U versus 4U).

Sure it may not be the best machine to use if you want to play Quake 4 or Half Life 2, but for scalable multithreaded apps, it really is quite impressive.

Re:too far?

[Short Circuit]

They still own the patents on various parts of the implementation.

From what I understand of patent law, if someone else wants to distribute hardware, they'll still need to get patent licenses.

IOW, Sun is becoming an IP company of a rare sort.

Sun finally "getting it?"

[einhverfr]

It seems that Sun is trying to outdo IBM in terms of the open processor thing. It will be interesting to see which approach works better in the short run and why.

Now all we need is the source code to the standard Java class libraries and we will be good to go :-)

Ahem

[Anonymous Coward]

Given their success with the OpenSolaris project

Is this supposed to be funny?

Looking forward to the possibility of some new linux on SPARC hosts in the racks.

Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog

[Anonymous Coward]

Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog: Our Most Valuable Intellectual Property

And now you have a pretty good idea of what's in store for tomorrow. (Pay careful attention to the "open market for parts" comment - we're planning on delivering an extraordinary surprise to the industry. No sense in letting the software folks have all the fun...)

PowerPC and Arm might get cheaper

[putko]

You can license ARM and PowerPC cores -- but they will probably get a bit cheaper if this one is available for free.

Right now Xilinx and Altera make user-configurable FPGA processors. Most of the processor is fixed, but you can encode what happens for special instructions. Here's one: http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon_solutions/f pgas/virtex/virtex_ii_pro_fpgas/capabilities/power pc.htm

Now if Sun is giving away the processor, there's no reason for you to pay more for a PowerPC-based design -- someone will make a "cheapo" FPGA-extendable UltraSPARC.

Sun's brain damage

[mcrbids]

It's become a custom of late to bash Sun. And, given the neurotic, manic image that they've been projecting, It's not hard to see why... One minute they're holding their cards close to their chest, the next moment, they throw their hand out on the table and say "whattaya thinka that?"

Even though Sun has a wonderful history of sharing their sources in many things, including many of the foundations on which Linux is built, it's really hard to give them full credit because their message is so... mixed.

Well, it may be the Sun is finally making a comeback. I came very, very close to buying a Sun last week. The deal-breaker was that I could not buy one with 2x 300 GB SCSI drives, in a 1U config, with 4 front-mount drive bays. These guys could, and did so at a price that rocked, and the server itself is just quality hardware.

I wish Sun well - there's plenty about them we can use! (EG: OpenOffice)

FPGAs are key

[grahamsz]

A field programmable gate array is a little (fairly) inexpensive chip with hundreds of thousands of gates that can be programmed into lots of different types of hardware, and reprogrammed at your convience.

I've worked with stuff from Xilinx and it's pretty impressive.

The other bonus to this is that you can take the Verilog or VHDL langauge (used to write hardware) and simulate it with great accuracy.

Re:FPGAs are key

[mvdw]

Agreed with most of what you say, except I'd like to expand on the comment "FPGAs are not particularly suitable for general-purpose processing where the system has extensive subsystem interdependencies and shared elements." FPGA's are also particularly suitable for low-volume applications where the designer can't afford to spin an ASIC, and also to fast-to-market applications where the time to market may be the critical factor in success or failure of a particular project.

I've worked a little with some of the smaller Altera FPGAs (mostly FLEX10K, ACEX and Cyclone series), and I find them a fantastic alternative to implementing stuff in microcontrollers - I have a project at the moment where I use the FPGA as a real-time coprocessor for the microcontroller which does most of the communications processing. In the future I might have the confidence to use one of the many soft processor cores available and remove the micro from the board entirely.

Yea! How to combat cpu level DRM

[nurb432]

We just 'make' our own CPU's and run Solaris ( or NetBSD ). So long after AMD and INTEL have sold their souls, practical open computing can live on.

Not that leon ( and other 'open' cpus ) was 'bad' but, this is from the people who brought SPARC to the world..

Re:Yea! How to combat cpu level DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are you going to "make" them? Got a fab plant in your backyard?

Besides, if they really want you to have DRM, they'll just put it in the motherboard instead, then. Or a special decoder card. Or a USB dongle.

Re:too far?

[WindBourne]

HUmmmm... Kind of curious why you got modded up, so lets talk about your stuff.

RedHat, Suse, Mandrake, etc all offer linux as OSS. This includes not just the compiler but a very wide array of tools. You can download these for free (mandrake only offers a short verion for free, but it is still including a large number of tools). ALL of the source code of anything marked OSS is available.

So, is Solaris now avilable with 100% of source code? Just a little while ago they were not (I no longer stay up with their development, I just talk to a few of their engineers).

Now, you mention DELL and IBM. Well they both sell hardware with services. Neither of them directly deal with Linux (except for IBM with Linux for the mainframe). You can buy just about any size machine from these 2 companies that is both smaller/cheaper to larger/more expensive than what Sun offers. In addition, when I look at the top 500 fastest computers, where is Solaris in there? Does it hold the majority of the top 10, let alone the top 500? Even in hardware, Sun is not there as much as IBM and others. In terms of Market share, Dell and IBM are individually beating Sun.

So, Linux is just about everywhere and has positive growth. Sun is strong on servers, but with flat growth. And you are claiming that Redhat, Novell, Dell, and IBM are spraying FUD? Hummmmmmm

Should I guess where you are from (as well as your modders)?

Re:FPGAs aren't where it's at

[Wesley Felter]

Er, you could emulate a SPARC years ago; open-sourcing the design of the processor doesn't affect that. But then, I get the feeling that I've been trolled.

Re:too far?

[tomhudson]

As others pointed out, most people will just be simulating the chip.

Of course, this means that you have more people trying out different things.

Sun then takes the most interesting stuff, and puts it in their next ge chips.

How is this (getting people to improve your product) a dumb idea?

Listening to Open Graphics Project?

[Theovon]

Someone there must have been paying attention to the Open Graphics Project. They're working on a design for an open source graphics card. Naturally, the drivers will be open source, but ultimately, so will the Verilog code to the internal GPU design.

Re:I'm only half joking, so don't mod me funny

[dakirw]

China doesn't have the technology, just yet, for chips as complex as high-speed CPUs, so I'd say probably another 5 years.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Taiwanese companies may already have set up foundries in China to take advantage of the lower costs there. If that's the case, then they should have access to all of the necessary technologies to crank out cheap CPUs.

Re:Put down the crackpipe

[thesqlizer]

You can buy a 1U, Opteron server system from Sun for $745.00. It doesn't have a disk, but you can add one for $150, bringing the price to $895.

Agreed, and that's indeed a nice price.

My "favorite" part is that the rails--the RAILS! mind you--are an additional $150!

Want cable management? Wave buh-bye to another 95 greenbacks.

Put another way: if you add both, you're paying a STAGGERING 25% of the cost just on racking the server!! You mean to tell me that of the HUGE costs Sun has in developing these machines--to say nothing of actually manufacturing them, 25 cents of every dollar gets eaten up by the folks in the rack-mount department?!

That's like charging $20,000 for a car, but asking for another $5,000 if you actually want umm...err... wheels. :-) [Note: Yes, I know there are wheels out there that cost that much, but they're *really* the exception as are the folks that spend that kinda loot on 'em. Rails for a 1U though are more like oil or gas for the car for most firms. You might try to throw 'em on a shelf once, but you're not likely to do that with more than a couple--that gets old fast.]

All that said, the overall cost of the gear is still pretty derned reasonable--and if it's anywhere near as good as the older Sun gear I personally use regularly, it will be good indeed.