Sun Niagara 2 CPU Now Open Source

downix writes "Late last night Sun Microsystems announced the immediate availability of the UltraSPARC T2, also known as the Niagara 2 CPU. While we all might not have a silicon fab in the basement, the access to this source code reaffirms Sun's commitment to open source, and in addition gives us FPGA-lovers something new to play with. The source code can be downloaded (with registration) from OpenSPARC.net. Already the previously open sourced T1 has spawned spin-off projects, such as the Simple RISC S1."

Openbsd

[Anonymous Coward]

I can remember when the OpenBSD crew was having issues getting sparc specs. My how times have changed.

Re:Home fabbing

[Anonymous Coward]

Look here for fab costs.
http://www.mosis.com/ [mosis.com]

Packaging is crucial to making the thing work too, however.

CAD tools to convert the RTL into GDS is also very expensive.

Re:When is Open Source actually news?

[QuantumG]

Dude. There's people who have made derivative works mentioned in the summary. You can't even be bothered reading the summary before posting? Wow.

Re:Relevance to Joe Consumer

[forkazoo]

I kind of wonder what the relevance of the availability of the
blueprint of a modern multithreaded special-purpose server
CPU means to the average Joe.

Probably not much, unless Joe has got an degree with a specialization
in computer science or electrical engineering.

The vast majority of (bachelors level) computer science degrees don't involve anywhere near enough focus on hardware issues for the "blueprint" of their CPU to be of any real use. The low level source of a CPU is of direct use to a vanishingly small subset of people. But, so is the source of the Linux kernel. I've never submitted a patch to the kernel. I wouldn't know where to start, frankly. And, I'm moderately qualified to do so, having done a fair amount of C, and a bit of embedded programming. I'm certainly more qualified to tinker with the kernel than I am with CPU source.

But, that sort of isn't the point. The fact that you and I wouldn't know where to start with something like that doesn't change the fact that such people do exist. And, there are some people who can't do anything with it, but are really curious to know more about what it is, and this may be the spark that makes them decide to learn. You and I may get the result of one of those guys having access to this. so, even though my own project plans won't be influenced by the availablity, I do expect that you and I will be effected by it indirectly.

Re:When is Open Source actually news?

[ChrisA90278]

don't understand you need a fab to do anything with this,

Not quite.... One can burn this into an FPGA. I don't know how fast it would run but if the goal is to study and experiment with processor design then an FPGA is the tool. The purpose ere is to allow people to study and modify the CPU

Wikipeadia of course has some info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array [wikipedia.org]

Re:21st century business plan

[pimpimpim]

I do wonder how Sun is going to make money the next century. They're trying new stuff, like opening up all their sources (java, solaris), but the money doesn't seem to be flowing back from these actions yet. Don't get me wrong, I think this might end up being really good for them selling the CPU in other devices, but I also think Sun makes pretty good products, and one of the last alternatives to the X86s, (for a huge price) and it would be sad if they went down.

Re:Open Source friendly?

[QuantumG]

I'd love to know where people like you get this kind of insight from.. Sun is an open source company.. they always have been. They were doing open source before "the revolution" even happened. They're more than "at ease" with it, they have some of the oldest living open source hackers on payroll.

As for this whole "oh noes!! Linux might takeover from Solaris!!" crap, why do people continue to ascribe the Microsoft world view - everything and everyone is a competitor - to other companies? Sun and IBM and every other normal company (read: not a monopoly) has one business strategy: give the customer what they want. If the customer wants Linux, Sun will sell them Linux. If the customer wants Solaris, Sun will sell them Solaris. If the customer wants Intel or AMD or SPARC, Sun will sell them that. IBM will also sell you Linux or Aix or Intel or AMD or SPARC.. if you want to pay them for that, that's what you'll get. It's only Microsoft who seems to think they can dictate the solutions to the customers instead of the other way around.

Re:Relevance to Joe Consumer

[NovaX]

While software folks may not understand the hardware world, its quite sad that hardware folks rarely understand the software side as well. One of the most challenging jobs, which gets little attention, is software-hardware codesign. Those applications, like Cadence VLSI suite, are quite challenging as they require EE expertise to implement features while software mastery to develop the product. This results in very advanced, but also very cryptic, software stacks.

I don't think open source hardware is too interesting or valuable, but I really hope software developers will feel comfortable enough to begin reading through HDL code just like they do their favorite open source project. Verilog/VHDL are both fairly old languages, though capable of doing some absolutely amazing tasks (I was in awe the first time I compiled my VHDL chip into a VLSI layout). It would be a really great to see language gurus apply the same innovative spirit towards modernizing HDL languages as they currently do in trying out different techniques in software languages (Haskell, Erlang, etc).

Re:Someone try to synthesize it!!

[wik]

The statistics the T1 are available here:

http://fpga.sunsource.net/ [sunsource.net]

The most recent release of the T1 code has a few options for removing functionality (dropping to 1 core and 1 thread) such that it will fit on some of the larger available FPGAs.

Re:Relevance to Joe Consumer

[nebosuke]

Not really. All serious competitors in demo competitions know the ISA and performance characteristics of the target architecture very well, but that is nowhere near knowing the hardware 'inside and out'. It's the difference between being very familiar with the API vs. the actual code implementing a library.