BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 14 -- Sun Microsystems announced it will bring the breakthrough efficiency of the UltraSPARC T1 processor with CoolThreads technology to network equipment providers (NEPs) and carriers in its upcoming Netra Advanced Telecom Computer Architecture (ATCA) blade and carrier-grade rack servers later this year. Based on PICMG 3.x standards, the new UltraSPARC T1 processor-based blade will dramatically reduce the number of blades necessary to deliver high-capacity 3G network infrastructure and IP service architectures, saving carriers millions in system, power, cooling and space costs.

Ideal for telecommunications blade architectures, where board and CPU space is limited, the new UltraSPARC T1 processor is expected to allow greater throughput than any other ATCA blade, allowing NEPs and carriers to support unprecedented numbers of calls and services on the industry's most dense AdvancedTCA blade servers ever. Sun's upcoming ATCA blade server family will be certified to the NEBS level 3 requirements of central offices and delivers many features designed to lower the total cost of development and accelerate the development of high-capacity, next-generation telecommunications services with a focus on delivering the highest service levels.

"Sun will soon bring the most dense and efficient processor on the planet to the telco market, enabling our customers greater computing power in the same ATCA-based envelope," said David Yen, executive vice president, Scalable Systems Group for Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Already the industry leader in carrier-grade servers, Sun is shattering industry standards for performance and efficiency and will further extend our lead over the competition."

Eco-Friendly UltraSPARC T1 Processor Uses Just 70 Watts

In an era where many processors use up to 150 watts, each UltraSPARC T1 processor uses just 70 watts, consuming less than half the energy of typical Intel Xeon or IBM Power processors and ideal for power- and space-constrained AdvancedTCA blades. These new UltraSPARC T1 processors will offer high transactional throughput in a highly dense ATCA form factor, saving carriers millions of dollars in system, power, cooling and space costs.

The eight core, 32-thread UltraSPARC T1 blade will work with the Solaris 10 operating system to allow customers to take advantage of the new CoolThreads technology without having to rewrite applications. The most advanced carrier-grade operating system in the world, the Solaris 10 OS features fault-isolating containers, Dtrace, Solaris real-time optimization technology and enhanced IPv6 encryption. As the result of over 10 years of experience with massively multithreaded systems, Solaris 10 OS is the ideal OS for systems based on multi-core chips. With Solaris guaranteed binary compatibility, equipment providers and carriers will be able to quickly migrate existing software and applications from current Sun platforms to the new UltraSPARC T1 AdvancedTCA blade with CoolThreads technology.

Prove it to Yourself with Commercial T1 Server Try and Buy Program

To help equipment providers and carriers test this technology before it's available in the AdvancedTCA blade server, Sun recently announced the industry's largest "Try and Buy" program. This program enables customers and ISV partners to test out a new commercial Sun Fire T1000 or T2000, server running the highly threaded UltraSPARC T1 processor free of charge for 90 days, with the option to purchase the system at the end.

Availability

The UltraSPARC T1 processor-based ATCA blade and Netra rack server will be available later this year.