SPARC

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SPARC

SPARC (from Scalable Processor Architecture) is a RISC

Reduced instruction set computer

The acronym RISC , for reduced instruction set computing, represents a CPU design strategy emphasizing the insight that simplified instructions that "do less" may still provide for higher performance if this simplicity can be utilized to make instructions execute very quickly....
microprocessor

Microprocessor

A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a central processing unit on a single integrated circuit . The first microprocessors emerged in the early 1970s and were used for electronic calculators, using Binary-coded decimal arithmetic on 4-bit Word ....
instruction set

Instruction set

An instruction set is a list of all the instruction , and all their variations, that a processor can execute.Instructions include:* Arithmetic such as add and subtract...
architecture

Computer architecture

Computer architecture in computer engineering is the conceptual design and fundamental operational structure of a computer system. It is a blueprint and functional description of requirements and design implementations for the various parts of a computer, focusing largely on the way by which the central processing unit performs internally an...
originally designed in 1985 by Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. is a multinational corporation vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services, founded on February 24, 1982....
.

SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc.
Incorporation (business)

Incorporation is the forming of a new corporation . The corporation may be a business, a non-profit organization, sports club or a government of a new city or town....
, an organization established in 1989 to promote the SPARC architecture and to provide conformance testing

Conformance testing

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Encyclopedia

SPARC (from Scalable Processor Architecture) is a RISC

Reduced instruction set computer

Microprocessor

Instruction set

An instruction set is a list of all the instruction , and all their variations, that a processor can execute.Instructions include:* Arithmetic such as add and subtract...
architecture

Computer architecture

Sun Microsystems

Conformance testing

Conformance testing or type testing is testing to determine whether a system meets some specified standard.To aid in this, many test procedures and test setups have been developed, either by the standard's maintainers or external organizations, specifically for testing conformance to standards....
. SPARC International was intended to open the SPARC architecture to make a larger ecosystem for the design, which has been licensed to several manufacturers, including Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments , better known in the electronics industry as TI, is an United States company based in Dallas, Texas, Texas, United States, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology....
, Atmel

Atmel

Atmel Corporation is a manufacturer of semiconductors, founded in 1984. Its focus is on system-level solutions built around flash memory microcontrollers....
, Cypress Semiconductor

Cypress Semiconductor

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation is a Silicon Valley-based semiconductor design and manufacturing company founded by T. J. Rodgers and others from Advanced Micro Devices....
, and Fujitsu

Fujitsu

is a Japanese company specializing in semiconductors, air conditioners, computers , telecommunications, and Service , and is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Tokyo....
. As a result of SPARC International, the SPARC architecture is fully open and non-proprietary.

Implementations of the SPARC architecture were initially designed and used for Sun's Sun-4

Sun-4

Sun-4 is a series of Unix computer workstations and server s produced by Sun Microsystems, launched in 1987. The original Sun-4 series were VMEbus-based systems similar to the earlier Sun-3 series, but employing microprocessors based on Sun's own SPARC V7 RISC architecture in place of the 68k family processors of previous Sun models....
workstation and server

Server (computing)

A server is a computer program that provides services to other computer programs , in the same or other computer. The physical computer that runs a server program is also often referred to as server....
systems, replacing their earlier Sun-3

Sun-3

Sun-3 was the name given to a series of UNIX computer workstations and Server s produced by Sun Microsystems, launched on September 9th, 1985. The Sun-3 series were VMEbus-based systems similar to some of the earlier Sun-2 series, but using the Motorola 68020 microprocessor, in combination with the Motorola 68881 floating-point co-processor...
systems based on the Motorola 68000 family of processors. Later, SPARC processors were used in SMP

Symmetric multiprocessing

In computing, symmetric multiprocessing or SMP involves a multiprocessor computer-architecture where two or more identical processors can connect to a single shared main memory....
servers produced by Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Fujitsu

is a Japanese company specializing in semiconductors, air conditioners, computers , telecommunications, and Service , and is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Tokyo....
, among others.

Features

The SPARC architecture was heavily influenced by the earlier RISC designs including the RISC

Berkeley RISC

Berkeley RISC was one of two seminal research projects into RISC-based microprocessor design taking place under ARPA's VLSI project. RISC was led by David A....
I & II from the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley is a public university research university located in Berkeley, California, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines....
and the IBM 801

IBM 801

The 801 was a RISC Central processing unit designed by International Business Machines in the 1970s, and used in various roles in IBM until the 1980s....
. These original RISC designs were minimalist, including as few features or op-codes as possible and aiming to execute instructions at a rate of almost one instruction per clock cycle

Clock signal

In electronics and especially Synchronous logic digital circuits, a clock signal is a Signalling used to coordinate the actions of two or more Electronic circuit....
. This made them similar to the MIPS architecture

MIPS architecture

MIPS is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . In the mid to late 1990s, it was estimated that one in three RISC microprocessors produced were MIPS implementations....
in many ways, including the lack of instructions such as multiply or divide. Another feature of SPARC influenced by this early RISC movement is the branch delay slot

Branch delay slot

In computer architecture, a delay slot is an instruction slot that gets executed without the effects of a preceding instruction. The most common form is a single arbitrary instruction located immediately after a Branch instruction on a RISC or Digital signal processor architecture; this instruction will execute even if the preceding branch...
.

The SPARC processor usually contains as many as 128 general purpose registers

Processor register

In computer architecture, a processor register is a small amount of Computer storage available on the CPU whose contents can be accessed more quickly than storage available elsewhere....
. At any point, only 32 of them are immediately visible to software - 8 are global registers (one of which, g0, is hard-wire

Hard-wire

Hardwire may be a reference to:*Wired communication*Hardwire *Hardwire, a song by Metric , from the album Grow Up and Blow Away*Hard Wired, an album from Front Line Assembly...
d to zero, so only 7 of them are usable as registers) and the other 24 are from the stack

Stack (data structure)

In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type and data structure based on the principle of LIFO . Stacks are used extensively at every level of a modern computer system....
of registers. These 24 registers form what is called a register window

In computer engineering, the use of register windows is a technique to improve the performance of a particularly common operation, the procedure call....
, and at function call/return, this window is moved up and down the register stack. Each window has 8 local registers and shares 8 registers with each of the adjacent windows. The shared registers are used for passing function parameters and returning values, and the local registers are used for retaining local values across function calls. The "Scalable" in SPARC comes from the fact that the SPARC specification allows implementations to scale from embedded processors up through large server processors, all sharing the same core (nonprivileged) instruction set. One of the architectural parameters that can scale is the number of implemented register windows; the specification allows from 3 to 32 windows to be implemented, so the implementation can choose to implement all 32 to provide maximum call stack

Call stack

In computer science, a call stack is a dynamic Stack data structure that stores information about the active subroutines of a computer program....
efficiency, or to implement only 3 to reduce context switching time, or to implement some number between them. Other architectures that include similar register file

A register file is an array of processor registers in a central processing unit. Modern integrated circuit-based register files are usually implemented by way of fast static RAMs with multiple ports....
features include Intel i960

Intel i960

Intel's i960 was a RISC-based microprocessor design that became popular during the early 1990s as an embedded system microcontroller, becoming a best-selling CPU in that field, along with the competing AMD 29000....
, IA-64, and AMD 29000.

The architecture has gone through a few revisions. It gained hardware multiply and divide functionality in Version 8. The most substantial upgrade resulted in Version 9, which is a 64-bit

64-bit

64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1960s and in RISC-based computer workstation and Server s since the early 1990s. In 2003 they were introduced to the mainstream personal computer arena, in the form of the x86-64 and 64-bit PowerPC processor architectures....
(addressing and data) SPARC specification.

In SPARC Version 8, the floating point

Floating point

In computing, floating point describes a system for numerical representation in which a String of digits represents a rational number.The term floating point refers to the fact that the radix point can "float": that is, it can be placed anywhere relative to the Significant figures of the number....
register file has 16 double precision

Double precision

In computing, double precision is a computer numbering format that occupies two adjacent storage locations in computer memory. A double precision number, sometimes simply called a double, may be defined to be an integer, fixed point, or floating point....
registers. Each of them can be used as two single precision

Single precision

In computing, single precision is a computer numbering format that occupies one storage location in computer memory at a given address. A single-precision number, sometimes simply a single, may be defined to be an integer, fixed point, or floating point....
registers, providing a total of 32 single precision registers. An odd-even number pair of double precision registers can be used as a quad precision register, thus allowing 8 quad precision registers. SPARC Version 9 added 16 more double precision registers (which can also be accessed as 8 quad precision registers), but these additional registers can not be accessed as single precision registers.

Tagged add and subtract instructions perform adds and subtracts on values assuming that the bottom two bits do not participate in the computation. This can be useful in the implementation of the run time

Run-time system

In computer science, the runtime system is software that provides services for a running program but which is not itself considered part of the operating system....
for ML

ML programming language

ML is a general-purpose functional programming language developed by Robin Milner and others in the late 1970s at the University of Edinburgh, whose syntax is inspired by ISWIM....
, Lisp

Lisp programming language

Lisp is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized syntax. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today; only Fortran is older....
, and similar languages that might use a tagged integer format.

The 32-bit

32-bit

The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding....
SPARC V8 architecture is purely big-endian

Endianness

In computing, endianness is the byte ordering used to represent some kind of data. Typical cases are the order in which integer values are stored as bytes in computer memory and the transmission order over a network or other medium....
. The 64-bit SPARC V9 architecture utilizes big-endian

Endianness

In computing, endianness is the byte ordering used to represent some kind of data. Typical cases are the order in which integer values are stored as bytes in computer memory and the transmission order over a network or other medium....
instructions, but can access data in either big-endian

Endianness

In computing, endianness is the byte ordering used to represent some kind of data. Typical cases are the order in which integer values are stored as bytes in computer memory and the transmission order over a network or other medium....
byte order, chosen either at the application instruction (load/store) level or at the memory page

Paging

In computer operating systems that have their main memory divided into page , paging is a transfer of pages between main memory and an auxiliary store, such as hard disk drive....
level (via an MMU setting). The latter is often used for accessing data from inherently little-endian

Endianness

History

There have been three major revisions of the architecture. The first published revision was the 32-bit SPARC Version 7 (V7) in 1986. SPARC Version 8 (V8), an enhanced SPARC architecture definition, was released in 1990. SPARC V8 was standardized as IEEE 1754-1994, an IEEE standard for a 32-bit microprocessor architecture. SPARC Version 9, the 64-bit SPARC architecture, was released by SPARC International in 1993. In early 2006, Sun released an extended architecture specification, UltraSPARC Architecture 2005. UltraSPARC Architecture 2005 includes not only the nonprivileged and most of the privileged portions of SPARC V9, but also all the architectural extensions (such as CMT, hyperprivileged, VIS

Visual Instruction Set

Visual Instruction Set, or VIS, is a SIMD instruction set for SPARC microprocessors, implemented on all UltraSPARC and some SPARC64 microprocessors....
1, and VIS 2) present in Sun's UltraSPARC processors starting with the UltraSPARC T1

UltraSPARC T1

Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor, known until its 14 November 2005 announcement by its development codename "Niagara", is a multithreading, multicore central processing unit....
implementation. UltraSPARC Architecture 2005 includes Sun's standard extensions and remains compliant with the full SPARC V9 Level 1 specification. The architecture has provided continuous application binary compatibility from the first SPARC V7 implementation in 1987 into the Sun UltraSPARC Architecture implementations.

As of December 2005 Sun announced their UltraSPARC T1 design would be open sourced, and in March 2006 the full source code became available via the OpenSPARC

OpenSPARC

OpenSPARC is an open source hardware project started in December 2005. The initial contribution to the project was Sun Microsystems' Register transfer level Verilog code for a full 64-bit, 32-thread microprocessor, the UltraSPARC T1 processor....
project.

Among various implementations of SPARC, Sun's SuperSPARC and UltraSPARC-I were very popular, and were used as reference systems for SPEC

Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation is a non-profit organization that aims to produce "fair, impartial and meaningful Benchmark s for computers." SPEC was founded in 1988 and their goal is to ensure that the marketplace has a fair and useful set of metrics to differentiate candidate systems....
CPU95 and CPU2000 benchmarks. The 296 MHz UltraSPARC-II is the reference system for the SPEC CPU2006 benchmark.

SPARC64

Since 1995, Fujitsu

Fujitsu

is a Japanese company specializing in semiconductors, air conditioners, computers , telecommunications, and Service , and is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Tokyo....
(initially through its subsidiary, HAL Computer Systems

HAL Computer Systems

HAL Computer Systems, Inc was a Campbell, California-based computer manufacturer. It was founded in 1990 by Andrew Heller, a principal designer of the original IBM POWER architecture....
) has designed SPARC V9-compliant processors under the SPARC64 brand, including the , used in Fujitsu

Fujitsu

is a Japanese company specializing in semiconductors, air conditioners, computers , telecommunications, and Service , and is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Tokyo....
's family of servers, and the SPARC64 VI, used by Sun and Fujitsu in their SPARC Enterprise

SPARC Enterprise

The SPARC Enterprise series is a range of UNIX server computers co-developed by Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu introduced in 2007. They are marketed and sold by Sun Microsystems, Fujitsu, and Fujitsu Siemens Computers under the common brand of SPARC Enterprise, superseding Sun's Sun Fire and Fujitsu's PRIMEPOWER server product lines....
M-class servers. As of mid-2008, the SPARC64 VII processor began shipping and is also used in M-class servers.

SPARC microprocessor specifications

This table contains specifications for certain SPARC processors: frequency (megahertz), architecture version, release year, number of threads (threads per core multiplied by the number of cores), fabrication process (micrometers), number of transistors (millions), die size (square millimeters), number of I/O pins, dissipated power (watts), voltage, and cache sizes—data, instruction, L2 and L3 (kibibytes).

Name (codename)	Model	Frequency (MHz)	Arch. version	Year	Total threads	Process (µm)	Transistors (millions)	Die size (mm²)	IO Pins	Power (W)	Voltage (V)	L1 Dcache (k)	L1 Icache (k)	L2 Cache (k)	L3 Cache (k)
SPARC	(various)	14.28–40	V7	1987-1992	1×1=1	0.8–1.3	~0.1–1.8
160–256
0–128 (unified)		none	none
microSPARC I (Tsunami)	TI TMS390S10	40–50	V8	1992	1×1=1	0.8	0.8	225?	288	2.5	5	2	4	none	none
SuperSPARC I (Viking)	TI TMX390Z50 / Sun STP1020	33–60	V8	1992	1×1=1	0.8	3.1
293	14.3	5	16	20	0-2048	none
SPARClite	Fujitsu MB8683x	66–108	V8E	1992	1×1=1
144–176
2.5/3.3V	1–16	1–16	none	none
hyperSPARC (Colorado 1)	Ross RT620A	40–90	V8	1993	1×1=1	0.5	1.5
5?	0	8	128-256	none
microSPARC II (Swift)	Fujitsu MB86904 / Sun STP1012	60–125	V8	1994	1×1=1	0.5	2.3	233	321	5	3.3	8	16	none	none
hyperSPARC (Colorado 2)	Ross RT620B	90–125	V8	1994	1×1=1	0.4	1.5
3.3	0	8	128-256	none
SuperSPARC II (Voyager)	Sun STP1021	75–90	V8	1994	1×1=1	0.8	3.1	299
16
16	20	1024-2048	none
hyperSPARC (Colorado 3)	Ross RT620C	125–166	V8	1995	1×1=1	0.35	1.5
3.3	0	8	512-1024	none
TurboSPARC	Fujitsu MB86907	160–180	V8	1995	1×1=1	0.35	3.0	132	416	7	3.5	16	16	512	none
UltraSPARC I (Spitfire)	Sun STP1030	143–167	V9	1995	1×1=1	0.47	5.2	315	521	30	3.3	16	16	512-1024	none
UltraSPARC I (Hornet)	Sun STP1030	200	V9	1998	1×1=1	0.42	5.2	265	521
3.3	16	16	512-1024	none
hyperSPARC (Colorado 4)	Ross RT620D	180–200	V8	1996	1×1=1	0.35	1.7
3.3	16	16	512	none
SPARC64 SPARC64 SPARC64 is a microprocessor developed by HAL Computer Systems and fabricated by Fujitsu. It implements the SPARC instruction set architecture , the first microprocessor to do so....	Fujitsu (HAL)	101–118	V9	1995	1×1=1	0.4
297+163+142	286	50	3.8	128	128
SPARC64 II	Fujitsu (HAL)	141–161	V9	1996	1×1=1	0.35
202+103+84	286	64	3.3	128	128
SPARC64 III	Fujitsu (HAL) MBCS70301	250–330	V9	1998	1×1=1	0.24	17.6	240
2.5	64	64	8192
UltraSPARC IIs (Blackbird)	Sun STP1031	250–400	V9	1997	1×1=1	0.35	5.4	149	521	25	2.5	16	16	1024 or 4096	none
UltraSPARC IIs (Sapphire-Black)	Sun STP1032 / STP1034	360–480	V9	1999	1×1=1	0.25	5.4	126	521	21	1.9	16	16	1024–8192	none
UltraSPARC IIi (Sabre)	Sun SME1040	270–360	V9	1997	1×1=1	0.35	5.4	156	587	21	1.9	16	16	256–2048	none
UltraSPARC IIi (Sapphire-Red)	Sun SME1430	333–480	V9	1998	1×1=1	0.25	5.4
587	21	1.9	16	16	2048	none
UltraSPARC IIe (Hummingbird)	Sun SME1701	400–500	V9	2000	1×1=1	0.18 Al
370	13	1.5-1.7	16	16	256	none
UltraSPARC IIi (IIe+) (Phantom)	--	550–650	V9	2002	1×1=1	0.18 Cu
370	17.6	1.7	16	16	512	none
SPARC64 GP	Fujitsu SFCB81147	400–810	V9	2000	1×1=1	0.18	30.2	217
1.8	128	128	8192
SPARC64 IV	Fujitsu MBCS80523	450–810	V9	2000	1×1=1	0.13
128	128	2048
UltraSPARC III (Cheetah)	Sun SME1050	600	V9	2001	1×1=1	0.18 Al	29	330	1368	53	1.6	64	32	8192	none
UltraSPARC III (Cheetah)	Sun SME1052	750–900	V9	2001	1×1=1	0.13 Al	29
1368
1.6	64	32	8192	none
UltraSPARC III Cu (Cheetah+)	Sun SME1056	1002–1200	V9	2001	1×1=1	0.13 Cu	29	232	1368	80	1.6	64	32	8192	none
UltraSPARC IIIi (Jalapeno)	Sun SME1603	1064–1593	V9	2003	1×1=1	0.13	87.5	206	959	52	1.3	64	32	1024	none
SPARC64 V (Zeus)	Fujitsu	1100–1350	V9/JPS1	2003	1×1=1	0.13	190	289	269	40	1.2	128	128	2048
SPARC64 V+ (Olympus-B)	Fujitsu	1650–2160	V9/JPS1	2004	1×1=1	0.09	400	297	279	65	1	128	128	4096
UltraSPARC IV (Jaguar)	Sun SME1167	1050–1350	V9	2004	1×2=2	0.13	66	356	1368	108	1.35	64	32	16384	none
UltraSPARC IV+ UltraSPARC IV+ The UltraSPARC IV and follow-up UltraSPARC IV+ are microprocessors designed by Sun Microsystems and manufacturered by Texas Instruments. They are the fourth and fifth generation of the UltraSPARC microprocessor family, implementing the 64-bit SPARC V9 instruction architecure.... (Panther)	Sun SME1167A	1500–2100	V9	2005	1×2=2	0.09	295	336	1368	90	1.1	64	64	2048	32768
UltraSPARC T1 UltraSPARC T1 Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor, known until its 14 November 2005 announcement by its development codename "Niagara", is a multithreading, multicore central processing unit.... (Niagara)	Sun SME1905	1000–1400	V9 / UA 2005	2005	4×8=32	0.09	300	340	1933	72	1.3	8	16	3072	none
SPARC64 VI SPARC64 VI The SPARC64 VI microprocessor, designed by Fujitsu, is a SPARC V9-compliant processors. It is used by Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu in their SPARC Enterprise M-class servers.... (Olympus-C)	Fujitsu	2150–2400	V9/JPS2	2007	2×2=4	0.09	540	422
120
128	128	5120	none
UltraSPARC T2 UltraSPARC T2 Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T2 microprocessor is a Multithreading , Multi-core central processing unit. It is a member of the SPARC family, and the successor to the UltraSPARC T1.... (Niagara 2)	Sun SME1908A	1000–1400	V9 / UA 2007	2007	8×8=64	0.065	503	342	1831	95	1.1–1.5	8	16	4096	none
UltraSPARC T2 Plus (Victoria Falls)	Sun SME1910A	1200–1400	V9 / UA 2007	2008	8×8=64	0.065	503	342	1831	-	-	8	16	4096	none
SPARC64 VII (Jupiter)	Fujitsu	2400–2520	V9/JPS2(?)	2008	2×4=8	0.065	600	445
135
64	64	6144	none
UltraSPARC RK (Rock Rock processor Rock is a multithreading, multicore, SPARC-family microprocessor currently in development at Sun Microsystems. It is a separate development from the Niagara family.... )	Sun SME1832	2300	V9 / UA__?__	2009	2×16=32	0.065	?	396	2326	?	?	32	32 + 8 predecoded bits	2048	?
Name (codename)	Model	Frequency (MHz)	Arch. version	Year	Total threads	Process (µm)	Transistors (millions)	Die size (mm²)	IO Pins	Power (W)	Voltage (V)	L1 Dcache (k)	L1 Icache (k)	L2 Cache (k)	L3 Cache (k)

Operating system support

SPARC machines have generally used Sun's SunOS

SunOS

SunOS is a version of the Unix operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems. The SunOS name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4 of SunOS....
or Solaris Operating System

Solaris Operating System

Solaris is a Unix-based operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS.Solaris is known for its scalability, especially on SPARC systems, and for originating many innovative features such as DTrace and ZFS....
s, but other operating system

Operating system

An operating system is an interface between hardware and applications; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer....
s such as NEXTSTEP

NEXTSTEP

Nextstep was the original Object-oriented operating system, computer multitasking operating system that NeXT developed to run on its range of proprietary computers, such as the NeXTcube....
, RTEMS

RTEMS

RTEMS is a free open source real-time operating system designed for embedded systems.The acronym RTEMS initially stood for Real-Time Executive for Missile Systems, then became Real-Time Executive for Military Systems before changing to its current meaning....
, FreeBSD

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a Unix-like free software operating system descended from AT&T Unix via the Berkeley Software Distribution branch through the 386BSD and Berkeley Software Distribution#4.4BSD and descendants operating systems....
, OpenBSD

OpenBSD

OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley....
, NetBSD

NetBSD

NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-derivative Berkeley Software Distribution computer operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed....
, and Linux

Linux

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL license...
are also used on SPARC-based systems.

In 1993, Intergraph

Intergraph

Intergraph Corporation is a software company with 3879 employees worldwide . Headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, Intergraph has industrial, government, and military customers in more than 60 countries....
announced a port of Windows NT

Windows NT

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was originally designed to be a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix....
to the SPARC architecture, but it was later canceled.

Open source implementations

Three fully open source

Open source

Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source . Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical Strategy element of their business operations....
implementations of the SPARC architecture exist.

LEON
Leon

Leon, L?on or Le?n may refer to:...
, a 32-bit, single-thread SPARC Version 8 implementation, designed especially for outer space uses. Source code
Source code

In computer science, source code is any collection of statements or declarations written in some human-readable computer programming language....
is written in VHDL
VHSIC Hardware Description Language

VHDL is commonly used as a design-entry language for field-programmable gate arrays and application-specific integrated circuits in electronic design automation of digital circuits....
, and licensed under the GPL
GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The GPL is the most popular and well-known example of the type of strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft....
.
OpenSPARC
OpenSPARC

OpenSPARC is an open source hardware project started in December 2005. The initial contribution to the project was Sun Microsystems' Register transfer level Verilog code for a full 64-bit, 32-thread microprocessor, the UltraSPARC T1 processor....
T1, released in 2006, a 64-bit, 32-thread implementation conforming to the UltraSPARC Architecture 2005 and to SPARC Version 9 (Level 1). Source code is written in Verilog
Verilog

In the semiconductor and electronic design industry, Verilog is a hardware description language used to model Electronics#Electronic systems. Verilog HDL, not to be confused with VHDL, is most commonly used in the design, verification, and implementation of Digital circuit logic chips at the Register transfer level level of Abstraction...
, and licensed under many licenses. Most OpenSPARC T1 source code is licensed under the GPL
GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The GPL is the most popular and well-known example of the type of strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft....
. Source based on existent open source projects will continue to be licensed under their current licenses. Binary programs are licensed under a binary Software License Agreement
Software license agreement

A software license agreement is a contract between a producer and a user of computer software which grants the user a software license. Most often, a software license agreement indicates the terms under which an end-user may utilize the licensed software, in which case the agreement is called an end-user license agreement or EULA...
.

S1
S1 Core

S1 Core is an open source Open source hardware microprocessor design developed by Simply RISC. Based on Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T1, the S1 Core is licensed under the GNU General Public License, which is the license Sun chose for the OpenSPARC project....
, a 64-bit Wishbone compliant CPU core based on the OpenSPARC T1 design. It is a single UltraSPARC v9 core capable of 4 way SMT. Like the T1, the source code is licensed under the GPL
GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The GPL is the most popular and well-known example of the type of strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft....
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OpenSPARC
OpenSPARC

OpenSPARC is an open source hardware project started in December 2005. The initial contribution to the project was Sun Microsystems' Register transfer level Verilog code for a full 64-bit, 32-thread microprocessor, the UltraSPARC T1 processor....
T2, released in 2008, a 64-bit, 64-thread implementation conforming to the UltraSPARC Architecture 2007 and to SPARC Version 9 (Level 1). Source code is written in Verilog
Verilog

In the semiconductor and electronic design industry, Verilog is a hardware description language used to model Electronics#Electronic systems. Verilog HDL, not to be confused with VHDL, is most commonly used in the design, verification, and implementation of Digital circuit logic chips at the Register transfer level level of Abstraction...
, and licensed under many licenses. Most OpenSPARC T2 source code is licensed under the GPL
GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The GPL is the most popular and well-known example of the type of strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft....
. Source based on existent open source projects will continue to be licensed under their current licenses. Binary programs are licensed under a binary Software License Agreement
Software license agreement

A software license agreement is a contract between a producer and a user of computer software which grants the user a software license. Most often, a software license agreement indicates the terms under which an end-user may utilize the licensed software, in which case the agreement is called an end-user license agreement or EULA...
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Supercomputers

As of November 2007, only one of the world's top 500

TOP500

The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year....
fastest supercomputers is based on SPARC64 processors:

Rank #392: Nagoya University
Nagoya University

, abbreviated to , is a Japanese national university headquartered in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, and is considered as one of the most prestigious universities in Japan....
Japan, PRIMEPOWER HPC2500 (1664 2.08 GHz processors), Fujitsu, 6860 GFLOPS

This list compares unfavorably with other processor architectures, which make up a much larger portion of the top 500

TOP500

The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year....
list. The SPARC processor family had 88 of the top 500 systems in June 2002, but has since lost popularity to faster chips from IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue" , is a multinational corporation computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, New York, United States....
, Intel, and AMD.

External links

- a SPARC architecture specification extended with CMT, hyperprivileged mode, VIS 1, VIS 2, and so forth
(SuperSPARC, hyperSPARC)

SPARC

Features

History

SPARC64

SPARC microprocessor specifications

Operating system support

Open source implementations

Supercomputers

See also

External links