The UltraSPARC IV ''Jaguar'' and follow-up UltraSPARC IV+ ''Panther'' are

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

s designed by

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

and manufactured by

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

. They are the fourth generation of UltraSPARC microprocessors, and implement the 64-bit SPARC V9

instruction set architecture In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA) is an abstract model that generally defines how software controls the CPU in a computer or a family of computers. A device or program that executes instructions described by that ISA, ...

(ISA). The UltraSPARC IV was originally to be succeeded by the UltraSPARC V ''Millennium'', which was canceled after the announcement of the ''Niagara'', now UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor in early 2004. It was instead succeeded by the Fujitsu-designed SPARC64 VI. The UltraSPARC IV was developed as part of Sun's Throughput Computing initiative, which included the UltraSPARC V ''Millennium'', ''Gemini'' and UltraSPARC T1 ''Niagara'' microprocessors. Of the four original designs in the initiative, two reached production: the UltraSPARC IV and the UltraSPARC T1. Whereas the ''Millennium'' and ''Niagara'' implemented block multithreading - also known as ''coarse-grained multithreading'', the UltraSPARC IV implemented chip-multithreading (CMP) — multiple single-thread cores. The UltraSPARC IV was the first multi-core SPARC processor, released in March, 2004. Internally, it implements two modified UltraSPARC III cores, and its physical packaging is identical to the UltraSPARC III with the exception of one pin. The UltraSPARC III cores were improved in a variety of ways. Instruction fetch, store bandwidth, and data prefetching were optimized. The

floating-point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic on subsets of real numbers formed by a ''significand'' (a Sign (mathematics), signed sequence of a fixed number of digits in some Radix, base) multiplied by an integer power of that ba ...

adder implements additional hardware to handle more not a number (NaN) and underflow cases to avoid exceptions. Both cores share a L2 cache with a capacity of up to 16 MB but have their own L2 cache tags. The UltraSPARC IV contains 66 million

transistor A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

s and measures 22.1 mm by 16.1 mm (356 mm²). It was fabricated by

in their 0.13 μm process. The UltraSPARC IV+, released in mid-2005, is also a dual-core design, featuring enhanced processor cores and an on-chip L2 cache. It is fabricated on a 90

nanometer 330px, Different lengths as in respect to the Molecule">molecular scale. The nanometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: nm), or nanometer (American spelling Despite the va ...

manufacturing process. The initial speed of the UltraSPARC IV+ was 1.5 GHz, 0.3 GHz less than the intended 1.8 GHz. In April, 2007 it was increased to 2.1 GHz. It contains 295 million transistors. Servers using the UltraSPARC IV were released in September 2004. The UltraSPARC IV+ was released in Sun servers in September 2005.

Sun Fire Sun Fire is a series of server (computing), server computers introduced in 2001 by Sun Microsystems (since 2010, part of Oracle Corporation). The Sun Fire branding coincided with the introduction of the UltraSPARC III processor, superseding ...

V490, V890, E2900, E4900, E6900, E20K and E25K systems all use UltraSPARC IV and IV+ processors. These systems range from 4 to 72 processor sockets (8 to 144 cores). Servers powered by the UltraSPARC IV+ processor were well received, allowing Sun to regain revenue lead in the

RISC In electronics and computer science, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer architecture designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a comp ...

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

server market in 2006.

References

* Krewell, Kevin (10 November 2003). "UltraSPARC IV Mirrors Predecessor". ''

Microprocessor Report ''Microprocessor Report'' is a newsletter covering the microprocessor industry. The publication is accessible only to paying subscribers. To avoid bias, it does not take advertisements. The publication provides extensive analysis of new high-perf ...

''. * Krewell, Kevin (18 January 2005). "Best Servers of 2004". ''

''.

External links

Computerworld article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ultrasparc Iv Computer-related introductions in 2004 SPARC microprocessors Sun microprocessors Superscalar microprocessors 64-bit microprocessors

See also

References

External links