Last New Fujitsu SPARC CPU Before Joint Servers With Sun Released

Fujitsu Computer Systems on Tuesday introduced the fifth generation of its SPARC64 processor, the last in its series of Sun Microsystems SPARC-compatible processors before the two start collaborating on their unified Advance Product Line (APL) server development.

Fujitsu and Sun officials early this month said the two would combine their server lines in 2006, replacing Fujitsu's PrimePower and Sun's Sun Fire servers.

Richard McCormack, vice president of product and solutions marketing at Fujitsu, said the Fujitsu SPARC64 V processor is being manufactured using the 90-nanometer process, compared to the 130-nanometer process used with the fourth-generation CPU. The new processor has a clock speed of 1.89GHz, up from 1.35GHz, and the level-2 cache was increased 50 percent to 3 Gbytes. Overall, the SPARC64 V performance is up about 35 percent compared to the SPARC64 IV, he said.

Fujitsu plans to start selling eight-way and 16-way servers with the new SPARC64 V processor starting in September, with 32-way and 128-way models expected to arrive starting in December, McCormack said.