INDUSTRY

Sun Microsystems has discontinued development on the UltraSparc V, a server chip that was supposed to come out late next year, and Gemini, a dual-core chip for Web servers, a company spokeswoman confirmed. "In order to get back to profitability, we have to make some difficult choices," she said. The cancellation underscores the difficulties Sun has been facing in the difficult world of chipmaking. Sun processors have fallen behind the performance in chips from IBM and AMD, according to analysts and benchmarks. The death of the chips will in some ways simplify Sun's future and its throughput computing initiative, which seeks to boost data throughput in processors. Under the new strategy, Sun will concentrate on powering its servers with derivatives of the UltraSparc IV, which came out earlier this year, for the near term. One coming derivative, currently known as the UltraSparc IV+ will have an integrated high-speed cache for rapid data access. In 2006 and 2007, the company will release Niagara, a multicore, multithreaded chip. It is based on technology acquired from Afara, but it will be compatible with Solaris, Sun's operating system. Sun also has another multicore chip, called Rock, coming out around the same time. The UltraSparc V, which was based on a different design than the UltraSparc IV, would have required Sun and its customers to adopt, and then phase out, an entirely new chip in the course of a few years. Server customers tend to try to minimize technology transitions. Sun managed to get the UltraSparc IV out with less-extensive delays, but the chip isn't a complete original. It consists of two UltraSparc III cores. The UltraSparc V and Gemini had reached advanced stages, although much work remained. The UltraSparc V had taped out, an expression that means the design was complete. (In the old days, when engineers completed a chip design, they sent the computer tape out to other groups.)