CPU Shack - Sun UltraSPARC-III

Sun Unveils Third Generation UltraSPARC-III Microprocessor Family

Family To Enable 1000+ Processor Systems And Up To 3X Performance Boost

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- October 6, 1997 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. today unveiled the third generation of the high-performance UltraSPARC^TM product line, the 64-bit UltraSPARC-III^TM microprocessor family. Initially at 600MHz, the UltraSPARC-III with the VIS^TM Instruction Set, is highly scalable enabling systems using up to 1000+ processors while maintaining complete Solaris^TM operating system (OS) and application software compatibility.

"The 600MHz target frequency of the UltraSPARC-III represents a very significant step forward for Sun and UltraSPARC," said Andrew Allison, industry analyst and publisher of Inside The New Computer Industry. "This frequency should translate to very competitive systems in the future."

Revolutionary Performance

The UltraSPARC-III microprocessor will offer a two- to three-times performance boost, without recompilation, compared to previous processor generations. This unprecedented performance is possible due to the processor's memory bandwidth, which is more than twice as high as previous processors and the highest in the industry at 2.4 GB/s. With 8 MB of second level cache, the 600MHz UltraSPARC-III processor will deliver an estimated SPECint95 of 35+ and SPECfp95 of 60+. The floating point measure of the processor is evidence of its superior performance for large data-set computing, such as computer aided design, computer aided manufacturing, electronic design automation and scientific modeling applications.

"With the exponential growth of the Internet and network computing, the marketplace is demanding high-performance processors that are highly-scalable," said Anant Agrawal, vice president and general manager of Sun Microsystems microelectronics division. "The UltraSPARC-III will fill this need and allow our customers to create high-performance, multiprocessor systems that are easily expandable to support rapid infrastructure growth."

Networking and the ability to process information rapidly is the most important issue in computing today. In addition to its many other features that support this goal, the UltraSPARC-III processor includes the VIS Instruction Set, which is the highest performance and most robust set of multimedia and networking extensions available. At 600MHz, it will deliver six billion operation per second enabling the UltraSPARC family to push the limits of networking acceleration as well as the limits of media acceleration.

Multiprocessor Scalability

"Innovation in computer architectures is currently focused on combining multiple processors into single coherent systems," said Chris Willard, director of high-performance computing research for IDC Research. "Servers supporting Internet and intranet applications benefit from this type of scalability in two ways. First it allows systems directly supporting web functions to easily and transparently increase capacity with increases in demand, such as hit rate. Second, it allows back-end applications servers, such as those supporting data warehousing, to grow with increases in applications size and user requirements."

The UltraSPARC-III is the industry's leading scalable processor enabling 1000+ processor systems, such as those that will be used in future generations of high-performance server equipment in the enterprise and telecom market.

"Sun has the hottest servers in the industry, thanks to our balanced system design, the power of the UltraSPARC architecture and the Solaris operating environment," said John Shoemaker, vice president of Sun's enterprise server and storage group. "The UltraSPARC-III will allow Sun to further advance its award-winning server family and push forward with even more powerful and scalable multiprocessor systems."

100 Percent Operating System and Applications Software Compatiblity

The UltraSPARC-III processor offers 100 percent binary compatibility for applications running the Solaris operating system, fully protecting a customer's software investment. It offers industry-leading performance in the most widely used software applications.

Solaris 2.6, the market-leading UNIX® operating environment and applications base, offers significant advantages to meet today's most demanding enterprise challenges: competitive performance, integrated networking, database connectivity, superior reliability and security. The UltraSPARC-III processor is supported by key Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and the SPARCTM platform is supported by industry-leading Real Time Operating System (RTOS) vendors.

The UltraSPARC-III processor family is targeted for network servers at the heart of the Internet infrastructure, for power desktops and for enterprise and workgroup servers. Due to its large memory bandwidth and multiprocessor scalability, the UltraSPARC-III offers significant advantages for high-performance computing applications, such as electronic commerce, scientific computation and data mining.

Availability

The UltraSPARC-III microprocessor is expected to sample during the summer of 1998. It will be manufactured by Texas Instruments using TI's EPIC-5 process. Production will begin with .25 micron CMOS technology and rapidly scale to .18 micron.

"The Sun/Texas Instruments partnership continues to be a strong one and is a significant competitive advantage for both companies," said Rich Templeton, executive vice president and semiconductor group president for Texas Instruments (TI). "Sun continues to create designs that drive process technology down to industry-leading micron sizes and TI continues to deliver with superior process technology. TI is firmly committed to delivering the process technology, yields and resources necessary to support Sun's leadership position in high-performance processors."

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The Computer',"" has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc., (NASDAQ: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $8.5 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the WorldWide Web at http://www.sun.com.