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SUNNYVALE, CA -- October 14, 1996 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. today previewed a new line of UltraSPARCTM processors aimed at entry-level workstations and servers, as well as the emerging high-performance embedded market. This fast-growing embedded market includes communications and networking devices like hubs, switches and routers and high-end document and medical imaging systems.
The UltraSPARC i-SeriesTM will provide a single-chip system solution incorporating a CPU, PCI bus interface, and memory controller to deliver all the benefits of tight integration -- unmatched overall system performance, ease of design and reduced system cost. Initial members of the UltraSPARC i-Series product family will range from 250 to 300 MHz, with production availability planned for the second half of 1997.
"Three critical "i-factors" - Internet applications, innovation and integration - are driving the next generation of microprocessor design for Sun," stated Anant Agrawal, vice president and general manager of Sun Microelectronics' new Performance Products Business Unit. "The evolution of network computers and the underlying network infrastructure provides an incredible opportunity for Sun to leverage its expertise in processor design and networking. Our mission with the i-Series is to develop a fully integrated, system-on-a-chip solution with an industry-standard PCI interface to simplify design, compress product development time and facilitate the use of widely available, lower cost components."
"A further benefit of integration," continued Veis, "is greatly easing system design because all complex communication activity is executed within the i-Series system module. System designers can harness the high-performance of the i-Series to PC-class, PCI-based motherboards and components."
The 64-bit UltraSPARC i-Series will be comprised of chip, module and reference board design solutions, all offering aggressive floating point performance and unmatched memory and I/O bandwidth. All i-series members will feature the widely-acclaimed VISTM instruction set for new-media and data networking application acceleration of up to 7X over traditional processors.
PCI Support: Superior Implementation of Industry Standards For overall design simplicity, i-Series processors will leverage standard, high-performance memory and PCI components including SuperIO, SCSI, networking and graphics interface cards. The UltraSPARC i-Series will incorporate a high performance dual-mode 33/66 MHz, industry-standard PCI bus that will be version 2.1 PCI bus-compliant and deliver up to 256MBytes/second (2 Gbits/second) of I/O bandwidth.