 UltraSPARC IV | |
| General information | |
|---|---|
| Designed by | Sun Microsystems |
| Common manufacturer | |
| Performance | |
| Max.CPUclock rate | 1.05 GHz to 2.1 GHz |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Instruction set | SPARC V9 |
| Physical specifications | |
| Cores |
|
| History | |
| Predecessor | UltraSPARC III |
| Successor | SPARC64 VI |
TheUltraSPARC IVJaguar and follow-upUltraSPARC IV+Panther aremicroprocessors designed bySun Microsystems and manufactured byTexas Instruments. They are the fourth generation of UltraSPARC microprocessors, and implement the 64-bitSPARC V9instruction set architecture (ISA). The UltraSPARC IV was originally to be succeeded by the UltraSPARC VMillennium, which was canceled after the announcement of theNiagara, nowUltraSPARC T1 microprocessor in early 2004. It was instead succeeded by the Fujitsu-designedSPARC64 VI.
The UltraSPARC IV was developed as part of Sun's Throughput Computing initiative, which included the UltraSPARC VMillennium,Gemini andUltraSPARC T1Niagara microprocessors. Of the four original designs in the initiative, two reached production: the UltraSPARC IV and the UltraSPARC T1. Whereas theMillennium andNiagara implementedblock multithreading - also known ascoarse-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.[1] Internally, it implements two modifiedUltraSPARC III cores, and its physical packaging is identical to the UltraSPARC III with the exception of one pin.[2] The UltraSPARC III cores were improved in a variety of ways. Instruction fetch, store bandwidth, and data prefetching were optimized. Thefloating-pointadder implements additional hardware to handle morenot a number (NaN) andunderflow cases to avoidexceptions. 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 milliontransistors and measures 22.1 mm by 16.1 mm (356 mm2). It wasfabricated byTexas Instruments 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 90nanometer 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.[3] It contains 295 million transistors.[4]
Servers using the UltraSPARC IV were released in September 2004. The UltraSPARC IV+ was released in Sun servers in September 2005.[5]Sun Fire V490, V890, E2900, E4900, E6900, E20K andE25K 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 theRISC/UNIX server market in 2006.[6]
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