Sun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. is a multinational vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services, founded on February 24, 1982...
'
UltraSPARC T2 microprocessorA 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 words...
is a
multithreadingMultithreading computers have hardware support to efficiently execute multiple threads. These are distinguished from multiprocessing systems in that the threads have to share the resources of single core: the computing units, the CPU caches and the translation lookaside buffer...
,
multi-coreA multi-core processor is a processing system composed of two or more independent cores. The cores are typically integrated onto a single integrated circuit die , or they may be integrated onto multiple dies in a single chip package...
CPUThe Central Processing Unit or processor is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer's functions. This term has been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s...
. It is a member of the
SPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems introduced in 1986.SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc., an organization established in 1989 to promote the SPARC architecture and to provide conformance testing...
family, and the successor to the
UltraSPARC T1Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor, known until its 14 November 2005 announcement by its development codename "Niagara", is a multithreading, multicore CPU...
. The chip is sometimes referred to by its codename,
Niagara 2. Sun started selling servers with the T2 processor in October 2007.
In April 2008, Sun released servers with
UltraSPARC T2 Plus, which is an
SMPIn computing, symmetric multiprocessing or SMP involves a multiprocessor computer architecture where two or more identical processors can connect to a single shared main memory. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
capable version of UltraSPARC T2.
The T2 is a commodity derivative of the
UltraSPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems introduced in 1986.SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc., an organization established in 1989 to promote the SPARC architecture and to provide conformance testing...
series of microprocessors, targeting Internet workloads in computers, storage and networking devices.
Sun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. is a multinational vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services, founded on February 24, 1982...
'
UltraSPARC T2 microprocessorA 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 words...
is a
multithreadingMultithreading computers have hardware support to efficiently execute multiple threads. These are distinguished from multiprocessing systems in that the threads have to share the resources of single core: the computing units, the CPU caches and the translation lookaside buffer...
,
multi-coreA multi-core processor is a processing system composed of two or more independent cores. The cores are typically integrated onto a single integrated circuit die , or they may be integrated onto multiple dies in a single chip package...
CPUThe Central Processing Unit or processor is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer's functions. This term has been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s...
. It is a member of the
SPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems introduced in 1986.SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc., an organization established in 1989 to promote the SPARC architecture and to provide conformance testing...
family, and the successor to the
UltraSPARC T1Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor, known until its 14 November 2005 announcement by its development codename "Niagara", is a multithreading, multicore CPU...
. The chip is sometimes referred to by its codename,
Niagara 2. Sun started selling servers with the T2 processor in October 2007.
In April 2008, Sun released servers with
UltraSPARC T2 Plus, which is an
SMPIn computing, symmetric multiprocessing or SMP involves a multiprocessor computer architecture where two or more identical processors can connect to a single shared main memory. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
capable version of UltraSPARC T2.
New features
The T2 is a commodity derivative of the
UltraSPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems introduced in 1986.SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc., an organization established in 1989 to promote the SPARC architecture and to provide conformance testing...
series of microprocessors, targeting Internet workloads in computers, storage and networking devices. The processor, manufactured in 65 nm, is available with eight CPU cores, and each core is able to handle eight
threadIn computer science, a thread of execution results from a fork of a computer program into two or more concurrently running tasks. The implementation of threads and processes differs from one operating system to another, but in most cases, a thread is contained inside a process...
s concurrently. Thus the processor is capable of processing up to 64 concurrent threads. Other new features include:
- Speed bump for each thread, increased to 1.6 GHz
GHZ or GHz may refer to:# Gigahertz .# Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state - a quantum entanglement of three particles.# Galactic Habitable Zone - the region of a galaxy that is favorable to the formation of life....
from 1.2 GHz
- One PCI Express
PCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe , is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP standards...
port (x8 1.0) vs. the T1's JBus interface
- Two Sun Neptune
Neptune, also known as Sun Multithreaded 10 GbE, is a dual 10 Gbit/s, multithreaded, PCIe x8-based network card. It was developed and originally produced by Sun Microsystems, and later licensed to Marvell....
10 Gigabit EthernetThe 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 10GE or 10GbE or 10 GigE standard was first published in 2002 as IEEE Std 802.3ae-2002 and is the fastest of the Ethernet standards...
ports (embedded into the T2 processor) with packet classification and filtering
- L2 cache
A CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations...
size increased to 4 MB (8-banks, 16-way associative) from 3 MB
- Improved thread scheduling and instruction prefetching to achieve higher single-threaded performance
- Two integer ALU
In computing, an arithmetic logic unit is a digital circuit that performs arithmetic and logical operations. The ALU is a fundamental building block of the central processing unit of a computer, and even the simplest microprocessors contain one for purposes such as maintaining timers...
s per core instead of one, each one being shared by a group of four threads
- One floating point unit
A floating-point unit is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root...
per core, up from just one FPUA floating-point unit is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root...
per CPU
- Eight encryption engines, with each supporting DES
The Data Encryption Standard is a block cipher that was selected by the National Bureau of Standards as an official Federal Information Processing Standard for the United States in 1976 and which has subsequently enjoyed widespread use internationally. It is based on a symmetric-key algorithm...
, 3DESIn cryptography, Triple DES is the common name for the Triple Data Encryption Algorithm block cipher defined in each of:* * *...
, AESIn cryptography, the Advanced Encryption Standard is an encryption standard adopted by the U.S. government. The standard comprises three block ciphers, AES-128, AES-192 and AES-256, adopted from a larger collection originally published as Rijndael. Each AES cipher has a 128-bit block size, with...
, RC4In cryptography, RC4 is the most widely-used software stream cipher and is used in popular protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer and WEP...
, SHA1, SHA256, MD5In cryptography, MD5 is a widely used cryptographic hash function with a 128-bit hash value. As an Internet standard , MD5 has been employed in a wide variety of security applications, and is also commonly used to check the integrity of files...
, RSA-2048In cryptography, RSA is an algorithm for public-key cryptography. It is the first algorithm known to be suitable for signing as well as encryption, and one of the first great advances in public key cryptography...
, ECCElliptic curve cryptography is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. The use of elliptic curves in cryptography was suggested independently by Neal Koblitz and Victor S...
, CRC32
- Four dual-channel FBDIMM memory controller
The memory controller is a digital circuit which manages the flow of data going to and from the main memory. It can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as on the die of a microprocessor....
s
Core pipeline
There are 8 stages for integer operations, instead of 6 in the T1.
| Processor |
Stages |
| T1's pipeline |
Fetch |
-------> |
Thread Selection |
Decode |
Execute |
Memory Access |
-------> |
Writeback |
| T2's pipeline |
Fetch |
Cache |
Thread Selection |
Decode |
Execute |
Memory Access |
Bypass |
Writeback |
Systems
The T2 processor can be found in the following products from Sun and
Fujitsu Computer Systemsis a Japanese multinational computer hardware and IT services company headquartered in the Shiodome City Center complex in Minato, Tokyo.. Fujitsu's central focus is on providing IT-driven business solutions, but the company and its subsidiaries also offer a diversity of products and services in...
:
- Sun/Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens 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...
T5120 and T5220 servers
- Sun Blade T6320 Server Module
- Sun Netra CP3260 Blade
- Sun Netra T5220 Rackmount Server
Sun also licensed the T2 processor to Themis Computer, which introduced the first non-Sun T2-based servers in 2008:
- Themis T2BC Blade Server, which supports the entire family IBM BladeCenter
The IBM BladeCenter is IBM's blade server architecture.-History:Originally introduced in 2002, based on engineering work started in 1999, the IBM BladeCenter was a relative late comer to the blade market. But, it differed from prior offerings in that it supported the full range of high powered x86...
chassis
UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors are used in the following two-way SMP servers:
- Sun/Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens SPARC Enterprise T5140
- Sun/Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens SPARC Enterprise T5240
UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors are used in the following four-way SMP server:
- Sun/Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens SPARC Enterprise T5440
Virtualization
Like the T1, the T2 supports the Hyper-Privileged execution mode. The SPARC Hypervisor runs in this mode and can partition a T2 system into 64
Logical DomainsLogical Domains is a technology from Sun Microsystems released in May 2007 which offers a virtualized computing environment abstracted from all physical devices....
, and a two-way SMP T2 Plus system into 128 Logical Domains, each of which can run an independent operating system instance.
Performance improvement versus T1
- Integer throughput and throughput/watt (>2x improvement)
- Integer single-thread performance (>1.4x improvement)
- Better floating-point throughput (>10x improvement)
- Better floating-point single-thread performance (>5x improvement)
- Two world-record single-chip SPEC
Spec may refer to:* spec is a music video or commercial which its creator produces at his own expense to improve his showreel in order to get a paid job...
CPU results, based on tests that delivered 78.5 SPECint_rate2006 and 62.3 SPECfp_rate2006
Other UltraSPARC T2 performance related tunings are documented on Sun engineers' blogs.
Power consumption
Peak power consumption can go as high as 123
wattThe watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units . It measures rate of energy conversion. One watt is equivalent to 1 joule of energy per second....
s, but the T2 typically consumes 95 watts during nominal system operation. This is up from 72 watts from the T1, but Sun explains that this is due to a higher degree of system integration onto the chip.
T2 Plus Compute Cluster
The
High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory (HPCVL) in Canada built a compute cluster using 78 Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 servers. With two 1.2GHz T2 Plus chips in each T5140 server, the cluster has close to 10,000 compute threads, making it ideal for high-throughput workloads.
Release history
On April 12, 2006, Sun announced the
tape-outIn electronics design, tape-out or tapeout is the final stage of the design cycle of integrated circuits or printed circuit boards, the point at which the description of a circuit is sent for manufacture....
of the UltraSPARC T2.
Sun announced the T2's release on 7 August 2007, billing it as "the world's fastest microprocessor".
On April 9, 2008, Sun announced the UltraSPARC T2 Plus.
Open design
On December 11, 2007, Sun made the UltraSPARC T2 processor design publicly available under the
GNU General Public LicenseThe GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project....
via the
OpenSPARCOpenSPARC 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. The release includes:
- Verilog
In the semiconductor and electronic design industry, Verilog is a hardware description language used to model electronic systems. Verilog HDL, not to be confused with VHDL, is most commonly used in the design, verification, and implementation of digital logic chips at the Register transfer level ...
RTL source code of the design
- Verification environment
- Diagnostics tests
- Open source tools, scripts and Sun internal tools needed to simulate the design
- ISA
An instruction set is a list of all the instructions, and all their variations, that a processor can execute.Instructions include:* Arithmetic such as add and subtract...
specification (UltraSPARC Architecture 2007)
- Solaris
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...
10 OS simulation images
External links