Sun's new chip platform began to be applied

Sun Microsystems has just acquired its first customer to agree on the application of new chip technology - "Neptune" that it reformed not long ago.

Marvell Technology Group has licensed the "Neptune" design, Sun's new chip technology to help build Ethernet-connected networks with speeds of up to 10Gbps, for its server and server network lines. The details of the agreement between the two parties have yet to be revealed.

Under the plan, Marvell will use Neptune to build network server products sold to customers. " These products will help expand its LAN product portfolio to the enterprise server and customer PC market, " said spokeswoman Marvell, Diane Vanasse.

Neptune is also called " Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology ", primarily for multi-core chips. Sun will apply Neptune technology to x86 and Sparc platforms. The technology will also be integrated for the Sun Niagara 2 processor expected to be available in the first half of this year.

A little while ago, Sun began to develop the UltraSparc T1 chip (8-core "Niagara") code, each capable of running 4 scripts (strings). With a total of 32 sequences, Niagara will be one of Sun's most powerful multi-threaded chips, but it has yet to penetrate it compared to the chips developed by Intel, AMD and IBM.