Fujitsu Announces 16-core SPARC64 IXfx (and the Supercomputer It Powers) 68
First time accepted submitter A12m0v writes with a link to Fujitsu's announcement of its next generation of supercomputer, from which he pastes: "PRIMEHPC FX10 runs on the newly-developed SPARC64 IXfx processors, which offer a very significant boost in performance over the SPARC64 VIIIfx processor on which they are based and which power the K computer. Each processor has 16 cores and achieves world-class standalone performance levels of 236.5 gigaflops and performance per watt of over 2 gigaflops." Not that K is any slouch.
Re:Oracle? (Score:2, Informative)
Not true. Oracle will continue to jointly develop the SPARC64 with Fujitsu. The servers produced today, dubbed the M-series are in fact sold and produced under Oracle logistics -- not Fujitsu. Fujitsu is a reseller of this technology, so if you buy a server from them, you're having it delivered from Oracle. Its Fujitsu who is the reseller. Further updates to the M-series will include moving toward the LDoms technology where there is an expected convergence with the M-series and T-series sometime 2015 according to the road map. I fail to see how this is a "grim" roadmap.
The Fujitsu computer that is the FX10 has been developed outside the Oracle/Fujitsu framework and this is one of the reasons that it doesn't run Solaris. The Oracle agreement does not cover the FX10 framework. The VIIIfx CPU is being fitted in Oracle chassis and boards today and expected to be available shortly. Though there are some difficulties with this chip with respect to power consumption and cooling, but nothing insurmountable. From the little that I know, the IXfx CPU is an extension of the VIIIfx and the jury is still out on whether this chip will indeed be compatible with the VIIIfx chassis. Suffice to say that its generic name in contrast to previous SPARC64 chips, it should be possible to integrate it. However looking at the design specs of the FX10 computer it seems as though a lot of the platform is near die or on die. Thus it could be a special chip which won't be suitable for general purpose computers.
Re:Oracle? (Score:5, Informative)