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Sun Moves Into Commodity Silicon
Samrobb writes "According to Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, Sun has decided to release its UltraSPARC T2 processor under the GPL. Schwartz writes, 'We're announcing the fastest microprocessor we've ever shipped this week — delivering 89.6 Ghz of parallel computing power on a single chip — running standard Java applications and open source OS's. Simultaneously, we've said we're entering the commodity marketplace, and opening the chip up to our competition... To add fuel to the fire, the blueprints for our UltraSPARC T2... the core design files and test suites, will be available to the open source community, via its most popular license: the GPL.'" Sun is still working on getting these released; early materials are up on OpenSPARC.net.
Finally a chip that you can run Java on.
That's what I got the first time I tried loading this article on /.
But seriously, what's the real point? Are the means to actually make one of these processors beyond 99% of companies and pretty much 99.99% of the people on the planet? What about the patenting of the process or equipment to actually make the processor?
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Clicking the OpenSPARC.net link returned the message: "This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota"
...when you are talking about a market with massive investment related non-recoverable expenses & high barriers to entry, such as processor fabrication.
Although I submit it would be really cool to just manufacture these things in my garage.
Go look at the CPU cycles per watt that the UltraSPARC T1 delivers.
Now, figure the UltraSPARC T2 is better than that.
I can't wait for somebody to design a new generation of desktop PCs that have lower power consumption than that of previous generations but without sacrificing performance and graphics. Anybody know how much power typical UltraSPARC based desktop PCs consume compared to Intel or AMD based desktop PCs?
Nothing that it matter... just interested, but does anybody know if it is released under GNU GPL 2 or 3?
Many FPGA houses provide free ARM cores etc for inclusion on their FPGAs. You can build an ARM-based (or other core based) device using free download tools and run it on an FPGA that costs a few bucks. To do this the licensee need to pay a heft licencing fee to ARm or whomever. Now they can also distribute GPL cores.
But is this really useful? To use a GPL core would mean that all the rest of the chip design would have to be released too. Very few hardware builders will be prepared to release their silicon source code because that is often the only way they have of preventing mass knock-offs etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Apparently Sun will sell the chips to you already manufactured if you want.
I always wanted a Tech 2 processor.
Oh wait...
Depending upon how the patents (are there patents?) are handled. China has been researching it's own chip design in the past. This could be a huge push for Sun if China abandoned trying to re-invent the wheel and just started cranking out UltraSPARC's.
Not to mention Windows not running on such, but Linux will.
And China would have a home source of chips for their IT industry and would not have to import Intel or AMD.
One would be to build a simulator that is accurate at the level of silicon, so that you can cross-compile and run binaries for this CPU on a non-native architecture. Another would be to look at some specific module within the core and re-use the code within an OpenCores project. A third would be to reverse this - take OpenCores code (or write your own) and generate a module that would work within the T2 and would provide functionality the developers might want. A fourth would be to produce a specialized version of the chip (rad-hardened, for example) without paying license costs. And so on.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Nothing that it matter... [is it] GNU GPL 2 or 3?
It actually matters a lot because Sun probably owns a lot of patents.
Too true.
If I've got this right: Under GPL3 anybody with foundry access could make the chip or a derivative, with no more patent issues than Sun itself would have. But under GPL2 they might have to enter separate license agreements to actually implement it.
= = = =
Presuming this release does make the chip open to anybody absent further licensing, it will be interesting to see how it affects Sun's future.
On one hand it means any company that wants to could build the chip and sell it in competition with Sun (which has borne the development costs on the SPARC series - but recouped much of them already).
On the other hand, they have a number of advantages: Already up and fabbing, deep understanding of the chip, etc.
Further, one big source of resistance to adoption of their chips is the concern for what happens if Sun abandons the line, stops developing it, goes belly-up, or closes up again. With a perpetual license to others to build this chip and make improvements on it, that's no longer an issue. Even if Sun went belly-up and left them with no other sources, a big enough company with a product based on this chip could even commission the fabrication of its own chips, rather than twisting in the wind for lack of supplies. So such a company can design this chip into their product line and buy it from Sun without betting their own company on a possibly weak supplier.
Let's see Intel or AMD compete with that that. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Well, apart from Simply RISC, who used the design to build a single-core chip (S1) for embedded applications.
And Polaris Micro in China, who are doing the same.
And David Miller & friends, who made Linux run on it.
And Canonical who support Ubuntu running on it.
And the other Linux distros picking it up.
And... Oh, sorry, you were just trolling, right?
The T1 is NOT abandonware, in fact I would say it is one of Sun's greatest strengths. We are doing a design for a JD Edwards data warehouse and while our JDE system is on Oracle on Windows we are looking at Unix platforms as strong choices for the data warehouse. Thanks to only needing 6 total boxes for the middleware layers for 4 different environments vs 16 Windows boxes Sun is 10% cheaper and 10% lower in 3 year operating costs despite having power sucking, expensive DB servers.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
1.4 GHz * 8 cores * 8 threads = 89.6 fake GHz.
I wonder how many BogoMIPS that is equivalent to.
Just to quell the concerns of "abandonware" and cries of "performance benchmarks"
:-)
Linky on numbers
Summary:
* This puppy comes ahead of Power5 and top-dog (till now) Power6
* Highest single CPU integer and floating point performance
Oh, and it has 2 10G network interfaces on chip... and EIGHT crypto cores to keep them running full throttle too. All this with 8 core each with its own floating point unit and 8 threads.
Oh and BTW, Ubuntu guys just booted their distro on this puppy
So yeah, it runs Linux (too)!
- mritunjai
'We're announcing the fastest microprocessor we've ever shipped this week'
I bet its the only chip they've shipped this week.
The posters here seem to be complaining that this is worthless because individuals can't make their own processor chips.
That's not the point. Here's the point:
1: Sun's processors are a niche market. People don't use them because they're harder to use than cheap commodity processors from Intel. Why are they harder to use? Because not enough people use them to create the kind of economic ecosystem that drives down the price of using the processors.
2: All over Asia are chip factories that make low-end embedded devices, RAM chips, and so on. Factories that are owned by companies that don't have the cash on hand to do the R&D to design their own processors to compete with Intel.
3: By GPL'ing their chip designs, Sun lets all those Asian factories produce chips that perform like Intels but cost even less. This gives people an extra incentive to switch away from Intel and to create the very economic ecosystem the processor needs.
4. Next, Sun releases enhanced versions of the chip that aren't GPL'ed. Chip consumers can now choose from fast commodity processors or more expensive deluxe models - that are still code compatible.
And Sun can repeat steps #3 and #4 as often as they like, feeding their previous generation designs to the GPL audience as their newest designs hit the market.
Clear, Dark Skies