The Niagara and Rock processors are both high-end chips, but may have the greatest impact on the lower end of the market, particularly in clusters of commodity x86 systems where network-intensive tasks, such as Web Services and e-commerce applications, are required.

Niagara chips contain eight 64-bit UltraSPARCTM cores and dissipates 60 W of power, which is a fraction of the 100 W or so consumed by current dual-core UltraSPARCTM IV processors. Sun has manufactured the first silicon of Niagara and it is now in a testing phase.

Its initial version is expected to include an on-board Ethernet controller and built-in memory controller. According to Sun, subsequent releases will have 10-Gigabit Ethernet and even cryptologic capability built into the chip.

Analyst and Microprocessor Report Editor Kevin Krewell tracks the semiconductor industry and is excited about this prospect. "It's a more aggressive approach to multicore than any of its competitors have tried," Krewell told Alexander Wolfe with VARBusiness. "To pack eight cores on one die is a challenging design because the burden falls on the operating system to manage all these cores and threads."

David Yen, executive vice president, Scalable Systems Group, Sun, explained, "People used to always want to find the fastest computer to run one single job. Now, CIOs are looking for a way to handle high capacity. Guaranteeing a 200-millisecond response time to a mouse click isn't that big a deal, but guaranteeing the same response time when 10,000 mice all get clicked at the same time is a real challenge."

Brian Upper, a technical sales manager at Sysix, says customers need to understand that the Niagara chip is distinctly different from the Rock processor. "The Niagara chip is targeting the network-facing side," he said, indicating that it is designed for the 1U and 2U rack-mounted servers and blades market. "Niagara is not the general-purpose chip. That would be Rock. When Rock comes out, my guess is there will be a whole new system developed around it."

The Rock processor also is multicore, but it isn't expected to handle the network interface like Niagara. The Rock is targeted more at applications that are oriented toward single users.

Sun's time frame on the Niagara processors are set for sometime in 2006. Yen said the year-long interval to bring the device to market will be used to educate Sun's partners on this innovation. "There are a lot of expectations for this chip," he said. "Our desire is when we finally release this product, it better be a big success." [...read more...]

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