Sun Selects TSMC To Fab 45-Nanometer And Future Generation Processors

TSMC Joins Sun and Texas Instruments Partnership;
Companies Will Combine To Design, Test and Manufacture Sun’s
45-Nanometer Processors Running the Solaris 10 OS

SANTA CLARA, Calif., – February, 2008 – Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: JAVA) today announced that it had selected TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) as its foundry partner for processors based on a 45-nanometer design as well as future generations. Sun will continue to design its chips while long-time Sun partner Texas Instruments (TI) will continue to test and build the 45-nanometer processors in TSMC.

“After a lengthy evaluation we selected TSMC for one reason: they’re simply the best at turning complex processor designs into silicon,” said David Yen, Sun’s executive vice president, Microelectronics group. “TSMC is already fully engaged with engineers from both Sun and TI and I expect we’ll all benefit from the cross-pollination of ideas among these three companies.”

“TSMC, working with Sun Microelectronics as their foundry partner together with Texas Instruments, on this industry-leading technology is a tremendous synergy of strengths,” said Jack Sun, vice president of R&D at TSMC. “This collaboration brings together all the ingredients to successfully design, test and manufacture some of the most complex chips in the world on TSMC’s CPU-grade manufacturing process.”

Sun, which currently designs processors based on 90- and 65-nanometer processes, is moving to the smaller 45-nanometer to allow more circuitry to be squeezed onto the same amount of silicon. The result: chip designers are free to add new features such as processing cores or encryption engines that improve overall chip performance.

More Threads
Importantly, the 45-nanometer design process also allows Sun to increase the number of threads per processor. More threads, when combined with Sun’s Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), hold the promise of delivering industry-leading performance at substantially reduced energy consumption.

Sun Microelectronics
The Sun Microelectronics group oversees development in networking, cryptography, and high-performance computing, and servers as a supplier to OEM customers around the globe. It August 2007, Sun introduced the UltraSPARC T2 processor, the fastest commodity processor with two world-record single-chip SPARC CPU results, based on tests that delivered 78.3 est. SPECint_rate2006 and 62.3 est. SPECfp_rate2006. The UltraSPARC T2 processor, which is powered by less than 95 watts (nominal) with less than two watts per thread, boasts the most functionality, and lowest wattage per core and thread of any processor in its class.
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