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Sun's plan for open-source chips bears fruit

Start-up Simply RISC builds a single-core variant of Sun Microsystems' open-source UltraSparc T1 chip.

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Stephen Shankland
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Stephen Shankland principal writer
Stephen Shankland has been a reporter at CNET since 1998 and writes about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Expertise processors, semiconductors, web browsers, quantum computing, supercomputers, AI, 3D printing, drones, computer science, physics, programming, materials science, USB, UWB, Android, digital photography, science Credentials I've been covering the technology industry for 24 years and was a science writer for five years before that. I've got deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and other dee
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A start-up called Simply RISC has built a single-core variant of Sun Microsystems' UltraSparc T1, an indication of interest in Sun's plan to encourage others to adopt and modify open-source designs for the processor.

The UltraSparc T1 "Niagara" has eight processing engines, called "cores," but Simply RISC's variant, called the "S1 Core," has only one. It's designed for embedded computing applications such as those in handheld computers, set-top boxes or digital cameras, the company said on its Web site Friday.

The company consists of former STMicroelectronics engineers working in Catania, Italy, and in Bristol, England. It has shipped its first S1 Core chip, code-named Sirocco.

The chip can run the Unix and Linux operating systems, Simply RISC said. Sun's Solaris version of Unix is chiefly used on Sparc processors, and the server maker is encouraging efforts by Linux programmers to support the UltraSparc T1. The Ubuntu version of Linux already has been adapted for the UltraSparc T1.

To infuse new energy into the Sparc processor realm, Sun released hardware designs for its new model. It is trying to build an OpenSparc community of hardware engineers around the chip, similar to the groups of programmers that support and extend open-source software.

The Sparc chips, while popular in the 1990s for servers, have lost some ground to high-end chips, such as IBM's Power and Intel's new Itanium. The biggest competition, however, has come from x86 chips, including Intel's Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron.