Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T2 microprocessor, is a multithreading, multi-core CPU. It is a member of the SPARC family, and the successor to the UltraSPARC T1. The chip is sometimes referred to by the codename Niagara II. Sun started selling servers with the T2 processor in Oct 2007.
| UltraSPARC T2 Central processing unit |
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| Produced: | 2007 - |
| CPU speeds: | 1.2 GHz to 1.4 GHz |
| Instruction set: | SPARC V9 |
| Cores: | 8 |
Contents |
New Features
The T2 is a commodity derivative of the UltraSPARC 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 threads concurrently. Thus the processor is capable of processing up to 64 concurrent threads. Other new features include:[1]
- Speed bump for each thread, increased to 1.4 GHz from 1.2 GHz
- one PCI Express port (x8 1.0) vs JBus interface
- two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports with packet classification and filtering
- the L2 cache 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 ALUs per core instead of one, each one being shared by a group of four threads
- one floating point unit per core, up from just one FPU per CPU
- eight encryption engines, with each supporting DES, 3DES, AES, RC4, SHA1, SHA256, MD5, RSA-2048, ECC, CRC32
- four dual-channel FBDIMM memory controllers
The UltraSPARC T2 is the first major processor whose blueprints are available under a free software license, namely the GPL.[2]
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 Systems:
- SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 servers
- Sun Blade T6320 Server Module
- Netra CP3260 Blade
Virtualization
Like the T1, the T2 also supports the Hyper-Privileged execution mode. The SPARC Hypervisor runs in this mode, and it can partition a T2 system into 64 Logical Domains, each of which can run an operating system instance.
Performance Improvement: T2 vs. 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 CPU results, based on tests that delivered 78.5 SPECint_rate2006 and 62.3 SPECfp_rate2006
Power consumption
Peak power consumption can go as high as 123 watts, 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.
Application Tuning
Sun published a number of Sun BluePrints to assist application programmers in developing and deploying software on T1 or T2-based CoolThreads servers:
- Developing and Tuning Applications on UltraSPARC T1 Chip Multithreading Systems
- Using the Cryptographic Accelerators in the UltraSPARC T1 and T2 Processors
Case Studies
- Tuning Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam on UltraSPARC T1 and T2 Processor-Powered Servers
- Optimizing Oracle's Siebel Applications on Sun Fire Servers with CoolThreads Technology
- Sun's High-Performance and Reliable Web Proxy Solution
- Deploying Sun Java Enterprise System 2005-Q4 on the Sun Fire T2000 Server Using Solaris Containers
- Consolidating the Sun Store onto Sun Fire T2000 Servers
- Web Consolidation on the Sun Fire T1000 using Solaris Containers
Tape-Out
On April 12, 2006, Sun announced the tape-out completion of the T2. It also disclosed that under the same power envelope, the T2 will deliver twice the performance of the T1 when running transactional workload. [3] Announcement webcast Sun announced the UltraSPARC T2 on 7 August 2007. It is now being billed "The world's fastest microprocessor."
Open design
| Free software Portal |
On December 11, 2007, Sun made the UltraSPARC T2 processor design publicly available under the GNU General Public License via the OpenSPARC project.
- Verilog RTL source code of the design;
- Verification environment;
- Diagnostics tests;
- Open source tools, scripts and Sun internal tools needed to simulate the design;
- ISA specification (UltraSPARC Architecture 2007);
- The Solaris 10 OS simulation images.
References
- ^ Niagara2: A Highly Threaded Server-on-a-Chip
- ^ Sun Enters the Commodity Silicon Business by Jonathan Schwartz's
- ^ Sun Microsystems Completes Design Tape-Out for Next-Generation, Breakthrough UltraSPARC T2 CoolThreads Processor
See also
External links
- UltraSPARC T2 Processor
- CMT Comes Of Age: Sun engineers give the inside scoop on the new UltraSPARC T2 systems
- An 8-core, 64-thread, 64-bit, power efficient SPARC SoC presentation that was made on Niagara2 at ISSCC 2007
- OpenSPARC T2
- Sun Servers with CoolThreads Technology
- Niagara II: The Hydra Returns
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| Hardware | Sun-1 · Sun-2 · Sun-3 · Sun386i · Sun-4 · SPARCstation · Sun Ultra series · Sun Enterprise · Sun Blade · Sun Fire · SPARC Enterprise · UltraSPARC T1 / UltraSPARC T2 · SPARC · JavaStation · Sun Ray · Project Blackbox · Sun Grid · Sun SPOT |
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| Education and Recognition | SCPs · List of notable employees |
