SPARC T3

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SPARC T3
Ultrasparc t3 micrograph.JPG
SPARC T3 micrograph
General information
Launched2010
Marketed by Oracle Corporation
Designed by Sun Microsystems
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate 1.67 GHz
Cache
L1 cache (16+8) kB
L2 cache6 MB
Architecture and classification
Instruction set SPARC V9
Physical specifications
Cores
  • 8 or 16
Products, models, variants
Core name(s)
  • S2
History
Predecessor(s) UltraSPARC T2
Successor(s) SPARC T4

The SPARC T3 microprocessor (previously known as UltraSPARC T3, codenamed Rainbow Falls, [1] and also known as UltraSPARC KT or Niagara-3 during development) is a multithreading, multi-core CPU produced by Oracle Corporation (previously Sun Microsystems). [2] [3] [4] Officially launched on 20 September 2010, it is a member of the SPARC family, and the successor to the UltraSPARC T2. [5]

Contents

Performance

Overall single socket and multi-socket throughput increased with the T3 processor in systems, providing superior throughput with half the CPU socket requirements to its predecessor.

The throughput (SPEC CINT2006 rate) increased in single a socket T3-1 platform [6] in comparison to its predecessor T2+ processor in a dual-socket T5240 platform. [7]

Under simulated web serving workloads, dual-socket based SPARC T3 systems benchmarked better performance than quad-socket (previous generation) UltraSPARC T2+ systems (as well as competing dual and quad socket contemporary systems). [8]

History

SPARC T3 processor Sparc t3 photo.TIF
SPARC T3 processor

Online IT publication The Register incorrectly reported in June 2008 that the microprocessor would have 16 cores, each with 16 threads. In September 2009 they published a roadmap that instead showed 8 threads per core. [9] During the Hot Chips 21 conference Sun revealed the chip has a total of 16 cores and 128 threads. [10] [11] According to the ISSCC 2010 presentation:

"A 16-core SPARC SoC processor enables up to 512 threads in a 4-way glueless system to maximize throughput. The 6 MB L2 cache of 461 GB/s and the 308-pin SerDes I/O of 2.4 Tb/s support the required bandwidth. Six clock and four voltage domains, as well as power management and circuit techniques, optimize performance, power, variability and yield trade-offs across the 377mm2 die." [12]

Support for the UltraSPARC T3 was confirmed on July 16, 2010 when the ARCBot under Twitter noted unpublished PSARC/2010/274 which revealed a new "-xtarget value for UltraSPARC T3" being included in OpenSolaris. [13]

During Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco on September 20, 2010, the processor was officially launched as the "SPARC T3" (dropping the "Ultra" prefix in its name), accompanied by new systems and new reported benchmarks claiming world-record performance. [4] Varied real-world application benchmarks were released with full system disclosures. [14] [15] [16] Internationally recognized SPEC benchmarks were also released with full system disclosures. [17] [18] Oracle disclosed that SPARC T3 was built with a 40 nm process. [19]

Features

SPARC T3 features include: [19]

T3 microprocessor floorplan UltraSPARCT3 Die Micrograph DavidHalko.png
T3 microprocessor floorplan

Systems

With the release of the SPARC T3 chip, the new brand of Oracle SPARC T-series servers was introduced to the market, effectively replacing CMT (UltraSPARC T2/T2 Plus) machines from the previous SPARC Enterprise product line. Fewer physical products from the former server line were refreshed with the T3 chip, reducing the total number of servers respectively to four: [20]

Virtualization

Like the prior T1, T2, and T2+ processors, the T3 supports Hyper-Privileged execution mode. The T3 supports up to 128 Oracle VM Server for SPARC domains (a feature formerly known as Logical Domains). [24]

Performance improvement versus T2 and T2+

The SPARC T3 processor is effectively two T2+ processors on a single die. [25] The T3 has:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sun Microsystems</span> American computer company, 1982–2010

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the Network File System (NFS), and SPARC microprocessors. Sun contributed significantly to the evolution of several key computing technologies, among them Unix, RISC processors, thin client computing, and virtualized computing. Notable Sun acquisitions include Cray Business Systems Division, Storagetek, and Innotek GmbH, creators of VirtualBox. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982. At its height, the Sun headquarters were in Santa Clara, California, on the former west campus of the Agnews Developmental Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SPARC</span> RISC instruction set architecture

SPARC is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed in the early 1980s. First developed in 1986 and released in 1987, SPARC was one of the most successful early commercial RISC systems, and its success led to the introduction of similar RISC designs from many vendors through the 1980s and 1990s.

Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) is a technique for improving the overall efficiency of superscalar CPUs with hardware multithreading. SMT permits multiple independent threads of execution to better use the resources provided by modern processor architectures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land grid array</span> Type of surface-mount packaging for integrated circuits

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sun Fire</span> Server series by Sun Microsystems

Sun Fire is a series of server computers introduced in 2001 by Sun Microsystems. The Sun Fire branding coincided with the introduction of the UltraSPARC III processor, superseding the UltraSPARC II-based Sun Enterprise series. In 2003, Sun broadened the Sun Fire brand, introducing Sun Fire servers using the Intel Xeon processor. In 2004, these early Intel Xeon models were superseded by models powered by AMD Opteron processors. Also in 2004, Sun introduced Sun Fire servers powered by the UltraSPARC IV dual-core processor. In 2007, Sun again introduced Intel Xeon Sun Fire servers, while continuing to offer the AMD Opteron versions as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UltraSPARC T1</span> Microprocessor by Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor, known until its 14 November 2005 announcement by its development codename "Niagara", is a multithreading, multicore CPU. Designed to lower the energy consumption of server computers, the CPU typically uses 72 W of power at 1.4 GHz.

OpenSPARC is an open-source hardware project, started in December 2005, for CPUs implementing the SPARC instruction architecture. The initial contribution to the project was Sun Microsystems' register-transfer level (RTL) Verilog code for a full 64-bit, 32-thread microprocessor, the UltraSPARC T1 processor. On March 21, 2006, Sun released the source code to the T1 IP core under the GNU General Public License v2. The full OpenSPARC T1 system consists of 8 cores, each one capable of executing four threads concurrently, for a total of 32 threads. Each core executes instruction in order and its logic is split among 6 pipeline stages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multi-core processor</span> Microprocessor with more than one processing unit

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">UltraSPARC IV</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">UltraSPARC T2</span> Microprocessor by Sun Microsystems

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ultra 80</span> Computer workstation

The Sun Microsystems Ultra 80 is a computer workstation that shipped from November 1999 to 2002.

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The SPARC Enterprise series is a range of UNIX server computers based on the SPARC V9 architecture. It was co-developed by Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu, announced on June 1, 2004, and introduced in 2007. They were marketed and sold by Sun Microsystems, Fujitsu, and Fujitsu Siemens Computers under the common brand of "SPARC Enterprise", superseding Sun's Sun Fire and Fujitsu's PRIMEPOWER server product lines. Codename is APL.

The AMD Bulldozer Family 15h is a microprocessor microarchitecture for the FX and Opteron line of processors, developed by AMD for the desktop and server markets. Bulldozer is the codename for this family of microarchitectures. It was released on October 12, 2011, as the successor to the K10 microarchitecture.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">SPARC T4</span>

The SPARC T4 is a SPARC multicore microprocessor introduced in 2011 by Oracle Corporation. The processor is designed to offer high multithreaded performance, as well as high single threaded performance from the same chip. The chip is the 4th generation processor in the T-Series family. Sun Microsystems brought the first T-Series processor to market in 2005.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">SPARC T5</span>

SPARC T5 is the fifth generation multicore microprocessor of Oracle's SPARC T series family. It was first presented at Hot Chips 24 in August 2012, and was officially introduced with the Oracle SPARC T5 servers in March 2013. The processor is designed to offer high multithreaded performance, as well as high single threaded performance from the same chip.

References

  1. ↑ RAINBOW FALLS, Sun's Next Generation CMT Processor, 2009-08, retrieved 2016-01-13
  2. ↑ High-end server chips breaking records | Speeds and Feeds - CNET News
  3. ↑ Sun, IBM push multicore boundaries
  4. 1 2 Oracle Unveils SPARC T3 Processor and SPARC T3 Systems
  5. ↑ Oracle Unveils SPARC T3 Processor and SPARC T3 Systems
  6. ↑ Oracle Corporation SPARC T3-1, 2008-03, retrieved 2011-07-19
  7. ↑ Sun SPARC Enterprise T5240, 2008-03, retrieved 2010-11-25
  8. ↑ SPECweb2005, 2008-03, retrieved 2011-07-19
  9. ↑ "Sun's Sparc server roadmap revealed". The Register .
  10. ↑ Sanjay Patel, Stephen Phillips and Allan Strong. "Sun's Next-Generation Multi-threaded Processor - Rainbow Falls: Sun's Next Generation CMT Processor Archived 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine ". HOT CHIPS 21.
  11. ↑ Stokes, Jon (February 9, 2010). "Two billion-transistor beasts: POWER7 and Niagara 3". Ars Technica.
  12. ↑ J. Shin, K. Tam, D. Huang, B. Petrick, H. Pham, C. Hwang, H. Li, A. Smith, T. Johnson, F. Schumacher, D. Greenhill, A. Leon, A. Strong. "A 40nm 16-Core 128-Thread CMT SPARC SoC Processor". ISSCC 2010.
  13. ↑ Twitter / ARCbot: PSARC/2010/274 New compiler
  14. ↑ Brian Whitney (September 27, 2010). "SPARC T3-1 Shows Capabilities Running Online Auction Benchmark with Oracle Fusion Middleware". BestPerf blog. Sun/Oracle. Archived from the original on 2011-03-08. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
  15. ↑ "SPARC T3-1 Performance on PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials 9.0 Benchmark - BestPerf". blogs.sun.com. Archived from the original on 26 September 2010. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  16. ↑ "SPARC T3-1 Supports 13,000 Users on Financial Services and Enterprise Application Integration Running Siebel CRM 8.1.1 - BestPerf". blogs.sun.com. Archived from the original on 26 September 2010. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  17. ↑ Kevin Kelly (September 24, 2010). "SPARC T3-2 sets World Record on SPECjvm2008 Benchmark". BestPerf blog. Archived from the original on 2010-11-26. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
  18. ↑ Kevin Kelly (September 20, 2010). "SPARC T3-4 Sets World Record Single Server Result on SPECjEnterprise2010 Benchmark". BestPerf blog. Archived from the original on 2010-09-24. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
  19. 1 2 3 "SPARC T3 Processor Data Sheet" (PDF). 2010.
  20. ↑ SPARC Servers
  21. 1 2 3 4 SPARC T3-1 | Web Infrastructure Server | Oracle
  22. ↑ T3-1B | Best Blade for Infrastructure Apps | Oracle
  23. ↑ SPARC T3-2 | Web Infrastructure Server | Oracle
  24. 1 2 SPARC T3-4 | Consolidation and Virtualization | Oracle
  25. 1 2 "SPARC T3 - some data - c0t0d0s0.org". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2010-10-01.
  26. ↑ "SPARC T3 Cryptography Performance over 1.9x Increase in Throughput over UltraSPARC T2 Plus - BestPerf". blogs.sun.com. Archived from the original on 2 November 2010. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
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