Product category: Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs
News Release from: Sun Microsystems Microelectronics | Subject: UltraSPARC III Cu 1050
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 26 November 2001

SPARC shows higher
performance at modest speeds

Sun Microsystems has disclosed SPECint (integer) and SPECfp (floating point) benchmark numbers for a new version of the UltraSPARC III microprocessor

Sun Microsystems has disclosed SPECint (integer) and SPECfp (floating point) benchmark numbers for a new version of the UltraSPARC III microprocessor that firmly positions it at the forefront of workstation/server processor performance. The UltraSPARC III Cu 1050 processor, set for availability for Sun workstation products in early 2002, features a 1.05GHz clock speed, a SPECint mark of 610 and a SPECfp mark of 827.

These respective 32 and 72% performance increases are particularly impressive when compared with the new processor's overall 17% clock speed gain.

These outsized performance gains result from improved manufacturing techniques, enhanced internal buffer sizes and management, and more efficient object code generated by a new version of the Forte compiler.

David Yen, vice president and general manager, Sun Microsystems' Processor Products Group said: "These improved SPECmarks maintains our position at the front lines of our industry segment.

These dramatically improved numbers again demonstrate how the outstanding headroom of the UltraSPARC III pipeline, world-class process technology from Texas Instruments and superior compiler technology, yield outstanding performance gains".

The better-than-anticipated performance gains for the new chip stem from continuous process improvements at the UltraSPARC III copper processor fab line at Texas Instruments, improved translation lookaside buffer (TLB) size and management, and speedier code execution enabled through the new Sun Forte Developer 7 compiler.

The Forte compiler is the most widely used software for translating program code into machine-level instructions executed on UltraSPARC-based systems.

Sun believes that using the new version of the Forte compiler will also improve the performance of applications running on other versions of the UltraSPARC III processor.

Currently in beta, Sun plans to make the new version of the compiler generally available in conjunction with customer shipments of UltraSPARC III Cu 1050 processor-based system products.

The performance improvements also testify to the robustness and quality of the UltraSPARC III processor and SPARC v9 instruction set.

These virtues are summed up in a concept known as "headroom" - the ability of a processor design to offer significant performance improvements over its lifetime without major overhauls.

In the competitive arena, the published numbers for the UltraSPARC III Cu 1050 processor place it ahead of the Intel Itanium and Hewlett Packard PA RISC.

Furthermore, the UltraSPARC III Cu 1050 dissipates only 75W sustained peak power - an increasingly important specification that contributes to the ability to pack more processors in a system without the need for exotic and expensive cooling as well as overall energy efficiency.

At this point, it is not clear how the UltraSPARC III Cu 1050 processor stacks up against the dual-core IBM POWER4.

Critics have pointed out that the scores claimed by IBM are achieved by executing test code only one POWER4 core on an eight-core module, accessing cache memory that would otherwise be used by all eight cores on the module.

Idling the other seven cores to achieve the fastest possible laboratory benchmarks is clearly an unrealistic operating condition that would not occur in the real-world and generates results that do not scale beyond the one processor executing code on the module.

Sun has qualified the UltraSPARC III Cu 1050 processor for production ramp at the Texas Instruments Dallas fab.

The chip's 0.15-micron, low-K dielectric, 100nm process is the same as that deployed for the UltraSPARC III Cu 900 processor.

Sun system products incorporating the UltraSPARC III Cu 1050 are planned for customer shipment within 90 days of this announcement and will be announced separately by respective Sun system product groups.

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