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Sun-4 is a series of Unix
Unix

Unix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of American Telephone & Telegraph employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson , Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna....
 computer workstations 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....
s produced 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....
, launched in 1987. The original Sun-4 series were VMEbus
VMEbus

VMEbus is a computer bus standard, originally developed for the Motorola 68000 line of Central processing unit, but later widely used for many applications and standardized by the IEC as American National Standards Institute/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 1014-1987....
-based systems similar to the 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...
 series, but employing 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 ....
s based on Sun's own SPARC
SPARC

SPARC is a Reduced Instruction Set Computer microprocessor instruction set Computer architecture originally designed in 1985 by Sun Microsystems....
 V7 RISC architecture in place of the 68k
68k

The Motorola 680x0/m68k/68k/68K is a family of 32-bit Complex instruction set computer microprocessor central processing unit chips and was the primary competition for the Intel x86 family of chips in personal computers of the 1980s and early 1990s....
 family processors of previous Sun models.

Models
Models are listed in approximately chronological order.

width="100%" class="wikitable">
ModelCodenameCPU boardCPUCPU MHzMax.






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Sun-4 is a series of Unix
Unix

Unix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of American Telephone & Telegraph employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson , Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna....
 computer workstations 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....
s produced 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....
, launched in 1987. The original Sun-4 series were VMEbus
VMEbus

VMEbus is a computer bus standard, originally developed for the Motorola 68000 line of Central processing unit, but later widely used for many applications and standardized by the IEC as American National Standards Institute/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 1014-1987....
-based systems similar to the 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...
 series, but employing 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 ....
s based on Sun's own SPARC
SPARC

SPARC is a Reduced Instruction Set Computer microprocessor instruction set Computer architecture originally designed in 1985 by Sun Microsystems....
 V7 RISC architecture in place of the 68k
68k

The Motorola 680x0/m68k/68k/68K is a family of 32-bit Complex instruction set computer microprocessor central processing unit chips and was the primary competition for the Intel x86 family of chips in personal computers of the 1980s and early 1990s....
 family processors of previous Sun models.

Models


Models are listed in approximately chronological order.

ModelCodenameCPU boardCPUCPU MHzMax. RAMChassis
4/260SunriseSun 4200Fujitsu
Fujitsu

is a Japanese company specializing in semiconductors, air conditioners, computers , telecommunications, and Service , and is headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Tokyo....
 SF9010 IU,
Weitek
Weitek

Weitek Corporation was a former chip-design company that originally concentrated on floating point units for a number of commercial Central processing unit designs....
 1164/1165 FPU		16.67 MHz128 MB12-slot VME (deskside)
4/280SunriseSun 4200Fujitsu SF9010 IU,
Weitek 1164/1165 FPU		16.67 MHz128 MB12-slot VME (rackmount)
4/110CobraSun 4100Fujitsu MB86900 IU,
Weitek 1164/1165 FPU
(optional)		14.28 MHz32 MB3-slot VME (desktop/side)
4/150CobraSun 4100Fujitsu MB86900 IU,
Weitek 1164/1165 FPU
(optional)		14.28 MHz32 MB6-slot VME (deskside)
4/310StingraySun 4300Cypress 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....
 CYC7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		25 MHz32 MB3-slot VME (desktop/side)
4/330StingraySun 4300Cypress 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....
 CYC7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		25 MHz96 MB3-slot VME w 2 memory slots (deskside)
4/350StingraySun 4300Cypress 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....
 CYC7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		25 MHz224 MB5-slot VME (desktop/side)
4/360StingraySun 4300Cypress 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....
 CYC7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		25 MHz224 MB12-slot VME (deskside)
4/370StingraySun 4300Cypress 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....
 CYC7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		25 MHz224 MB12-slot VME (deskside)
4/380StingraySun 4300Cypress 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....
 CYC7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		25 MHz224 MB12-slot VME (rackmount)
4/390StingraySun 4300Cypress 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....
 CYC7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		25 MHz224 MB16-slot VME (rackmount)
4/470SunraySun 4400Cypress 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....
 CY7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		33 MHz768 MB16-slot VME (deskside)
4/490SunraySun 4400Cypress 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....
 CY7C601,
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....
 8847 FPU		33 MHz768 MB12-slot VME (rackmount)


In 1989, Sun dropped the "Sun-4" name for marketing purposes in favor of the SPARCstation
SPARCstation

The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines were a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and server s in desktop, deskside and rack-based form factor developed and sold by Sun Microsystems...
 and SPARCserver brands for new models, although early SPARCstation/server models were also assigned Sun-4-series model numbers. For example, the SPARCstation 1
SPARCstation 1

The SPARCstation 1, or Sun 4/60, is a SPARC-based computer workstation sold by Sun Microsystems as the first of its SPARCstation series. It was sold starting in April 1989, and the end of Sun's support for it was in 1995....
 was also known as the Sun 4/60. This practice was phased out with the introduction of the SPARCserver 600MP series in 1991. The term Sun-4 continued to be used in an engineering context to identify the basic hardware architecture of all SPARC-based Sun systems.

Sun 4/110, 4/150, 4/260 and 4/280 systems upgraded with the Sun 4300 CPU board (as used in the SPARCserver 300 series) were referred to as the 4/310, 4/350, 4/360 and 4/380 respectively.

Variants


The Sun-4 architecture refers to the VME-based architecture described above and used in the 4/100, 4/200, SPARCserver 300 and SPARCserver 400 ranges. Sun-4 support was included in 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....
 3.2 onwards and Solaris
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....
 2.1 to 2.4.

Several variations on the Sun-4 architecture were subsequently developed:

  • Sun-4c (C presumably for Campus, the codename of the first Sun-4c model, the SPARCstation 1
    SPARCstation 1

    The SPARCstation 1, or Sun 4/60, is a SPARC-based computer workstation sold by Sun Microsystems as the first of its SPARCstation series. It was sold starting in April 1989, and the end of Sun's support for it was in 1995....
    ): this desktop workstation/low-end server variant substituted the 32-bit SBus
    SBus

    SBus is a computer bus system that was used in most SPARC-based computers from Sun Microsystems and others during the 1990s. It was introduced by Sun in 1989 to be a high-speed bus counterpart to their high-speed SPARC processors, replacing the earlier VMEbus used in their Motorola 68020- and 68030-based systems and early SPARC boxes....
     expansion bus in place of VME and introduced a new MMU design. Supported by SunOS 4.0.3c onwards and Solaris 2.0 to 7.


  • Sun-4e: a hybrid Sun-4c/VME architecture found in the SPARCengine 1 (Sun 4/E) VME embedded controller. This board was originally designed by Force Computers and licensed to Sun. Supported by SunOS 4.0.3e and 4.1e and Solaris 2.1 to 2.4.


  • Sun-4m: originally a multiprocessor Sun-4 variant, based around the MBus processor module bus introduced in the SPARCserver 600MP series. The Sun-4m architecture later also encompassed non-MBus uniprocessor systems such as the SPARCstation 5
    SPARCstation 5

    SPARCstation 5 or SS5 is a workstation sold by Sun Microsystems. It is based on the sun4m architecture, and is enclosed in a pizza-box chassis....
    , utilizing SPARC V8-architecture processors. Supported by SunOS 4.1.2 onwards and Solaris 2.1 to 9. SPARCserver 600MP support was dropped after Solaris 2.5.1.


  • Sun-4d
    Sun4d

    Sun4d is a computer architecture introduced bySun Microsystems in 1992. It is a development of the earlier Sun-4 architecture, using the XDBus system bus,...
     (D for Dragon, the codename of the SPARCcenter 2000): a high-end multiprocessor architecture, based around the XDBus processor interconnect, scalable up to 20 processors. The only Sun-4d systems produced by Sun were the SPARCserver 1000 and SPARCcenter 2000 series. The Cray CS6400
    Cray CS6400

    The Cray Superserver 6400, or CS6400, was a multiprocessor server computer system produced by Cray Research Superservers, Inc., a subsidiary of Cray Research, and launched in 1993....
     was also nominally a Sun-4d machine (sun4d6), although it required a custom version of Solaris. Supported by Solaris 2.2 to 8.


  • Sun-4u: this variant introduced the 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....
     UltraSPARC (SPARC V9) processor architecture and UPA processor interconnect first used in the Sun Ultra series
    Sun Ultra series

    The original Sun Ultra series was a series of UltraSPARC-based computer workstations and Server s developed and sold by Sun Microsystems from 1995 to 2001....
    . Supported by Solaris 2.5 onwards. UltraSPARC I support was dropped after Solaris 9.


  • Sun-4u1: Sometimes used to identify the Enterprise 10000 (Starfire) 64-way multiprocessor server architecture. The Starfire is supported by Solaris 2.5.1 onwards.


  • Sun-4v (V presumably for "virtualized"): this is a variation on Sun-4u which includes hypervisor
    Hypervisor

    A hypervisor, also called virtual machine monitor , is a computer hardware platform virtualization software that allows multiple operating systems to run on a host computer concurrently....
     processor virtualization; introduced in 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....
     (Niagara) multicore
    Multicore

    Multicore may refer to:* Multi-core * multicore cable* audio multicore cable...
     processor. Supported by Solaris 10 3/05 HW2 onwards.


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