Sun Microsystems Releases UltraSPARC T1 Processor Design Under GNU GPL Open Source License

Published 23rd March 2006

Publication of 'Niagara' processor design spurs eco-system, extends Sun's multi-year lead in delivering multi-threaded systems...

Sun Microsystems has reached a significant milestone in its OpenSPARC Initiative aimed at the creation of the world's first multi-core, multi-threaded eco-system: publication of the hardware design point and the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) porting specifications for the
breakthrough UltraSPARC T1 processor.

For the first time in history, developers gain access to the chip multi-threading (CMT) technology unique to the UltraSPARC T1 processor, which will be released under the OSI-compliant GNU General Public License (GPL). This new open source version of the UltraSPARC T1 design will be called "OpenSPARC T1" and is a 64 bit, 32 threaded processor design available at no charge.

"Sun is using open standards and the creation of a rich CMT community to foster innovation and maintain our multi-year lead over competitors in delivering multi-threaded systems to customers," said David Yen, executive vice-president, Scalable Systems Group, Sun Microsystems.

Today's announcement builds upon Sun's recent move to release Hypervisor API specifications - which allow companies to port Linux, BSD and other operating systems to the UltraSPARC T1 platform - and gives developers the information needed to create hardware, software, tools and other applications in this multi-threaded eco-system. This is the first time that such a complex hardware design has been released under the GNU GPL, reflecting Sun's continued commitment to the open source development model and to offering customers greater choice.

More specifically, Sun has made public these specifications:
* Source of the UltraSPARCT1 design, expressed in Verilog;
* Verification suite and simulation models;
* ISA specification (UltraSPARC Architecture 2005);
* The Solaris 10 OS simulation images.

Sun also released porting specifications for the Solaris 10 OS, which will allow developers to create and run their multi-threaded hardware and software products on the world's most advanced operating system. The release of this open operating open platform bolsters the strength of this
new multi-threaded community.

Sun's OpenSPARC Initiative has partnered with universities in the RAMP project - which includes researchers from University of California-Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, Carneige Melon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Washington and University of Texas at Austin -- to work together to port this new multi-threaded 64-bit RISC processor and build a 1,000-core scalable research system.

"Sun is releasing a full suite of open hardware and software offerings which look very useful for the RAMP project," said UC-Berkeley Professor David Patterson. "I am excited by the 64 bit, 32 thread design which can potentially be mapped into an FPGA implementation. I would like to see RAMP and Sun work towards making OpenSPARC a new open industry standard."

In addition, Aurora VLSI, Aldec, Synopsys, World 45 Ltd., SimplyRISC, Time-to-Market and University of California, Santa Cruz are among members of the open source community to support Sun's pioneering OpenSPARC initiative.

"OpenSPARC is a great opportunity for emerging companies like Simply RISC" said Fabrizio Fazzino, Managing Director, Simply RISC. "We will be utilising the OpenSPARC T1 designs to develop a single core version for the embedded device market, which we would not have had access to previously. This levels the playing field for us immensely and we are really looking
forward to participating in the OpenSPARC community."

Sun published the OpenSPARC T1 chip design and verification suites, architecture and performance modelling tools on www.Opensparc.net, a free, active, open source community resource that encourages users to join and participate.

New "Cool Tools" were also launched, offering a variety of tools available for performance tuning of applications on multi-threaded processors and CMT programming and profiling, among other functions. For more information, please see http://cooltools.sunsource.net





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