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SUN PREVIEWS NEW ULTRASPARCTM PROCESSORS; i-SERIESTM PROVIDES SINGLE-CHIP PCI-BASED SOLUTION
SUNNYVALE, CA -- October 14, 1996 -- Sun Microsystems,
Inc. today previewed a new line of UltraSPARCTM processors aimed
at entry-level workstations and servers, as well as the emerging
high-performance embedded market. This fast-growing embedded
market includes communications and networking devices like hubs,
switches and routers and high-end document and medical imaging
systems.
The UltraSPARC i-SeriesTM will provide a single-chip
system solution incorporating a CPU, PCI bus interface, and memory
controller to deliver all the benefits of tight integration --
unmatched overall system performance, ease of design and reduced
system cost. Initial members of the UltraSPARC i-Series product
family will range from 250 to 300 MHz, with production availability
planned for the second half of 1997.
"Three critical "i-factors" - Internet applications,
innovation and integration - are driving the next generation of
microprocessor design for Sun," stated Anant Agrawal, vice
president and general manager of Sun Microelectronics' new
Performance Products Business Unit. "The evolution of network
computers and the underlying network infrastructure provides an
incredible opportunity for Sun to leverage its expertise in
processor design and networking. Our mission with the i-Series
is to develop a fully integrated, system-on-a-chip solution with
an industry-standard PCI interface to simplify design, compress
product development time and facilitate the use of widely
available, lower cost components."
Optimizing Overall System Performance with the i-Series
"Improving overall system performance takes more than
just raw processor speed," stated Jeff Veis, i-Series group
marketing manager. "Memory, I/O and floating point performance
are critical to delivering optimal overall system performance.
By integrating all of the complex, high speed communication
within a single-chip, we have eliminated bandwidth-dependent
bottlenecks by minimizing memory latency and I/O throughput and
significantly boosting overall system performance.
"A further benefit of integration," continued Veis,
"is greatly easing system design because all complex communication
activity is executed within the i-Series system module. System
designers can harness the high-performance of the i-Series to
PC-class, PCI-based motherboards and components."
The 64-bit UltraSPARC i-Series will be comprised of chip,
module and reference board design solutions, all offering aggressive
floating point performance and unmatched memory and I/O bandwidth.
All i-series members will feature the widely-acclaimed VISTM
instruction set for new-media and data networking application
acceleration of up to 7X over traditional processors.
PCI Support: Superior Implementation of Industry Standards
For overall design simplicity, i-Series processors will leverage
standard, high-performance memory and PCI components including
SuperIO, SCSI, networking and graphics interface cards. The
UltraSPARC i-Series will incorporate a high performance dual-mode
33/66 MHz, industry-standard PCI bus that will be version 2.1 PCI
bus-compliant and deliver up to 256MBytes/second (2 Gbits/second)
of I/O bandwidth.
Software Support
The UltraSPARC i-Series will support Sun's SolarisTM
operating system and will be binary-compatible with the broad
array of existing SPARC applications. In addition, Sun is working
with leading real-time operating system (RTOS) suppliers for
embedded applications.
Background
With annual revenues of more than $7 billion, Sun Microsystems,
Inc. provides products and services that enable customers to build
and maintain open network computing environments. Widely recognized
as a proponent of open standards, the company is involved in the
design, manufacture and sale of products, technologies and services
for commercial and technical computing. Sun Microsystems was founded
in 1982, and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Sun, the Sun Logo, Sun Microsystems, Java, JavaChips, Solaris and
i-series are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems,
Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks
are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks
of SPARC International,Inc. in the United States of America and
other countries. Products bearing SPARCtrademarks are based on an
architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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