Sun adding Sparc to embedded arena

Electronic News, March 17, 1997 by Jim DeTar

Mountain View, Calif.--Sun Microsystems has taken the wraps off the microSparc-IIep, the first member of the Sparc processor family targeted exclusively to low-cost embedded systems, a significant strategic marketing shift for Sun, one of the industry's leading workstation companies in terms of sales.

At the same time, Sun and LSI Logic have taken their long-standing foundry relationship a step further by collaborating on production of the Sparc v8 RISC architecture-based microSparc-IIep, the first in a planned series of processors for the embedded market.

They achieved working silicon in just six months, according to Chet Silvestri, president of Sun Microelectronics, the chip operating arm of Sun. Mr. Silvestri added that "One of our goals is to provide embedded customers with a highly integrated, price sensitive, time-to-market solution."

B.R. Ranganath, Sun Microsystems group marketing manager, explained in an interview that Sun did not cede control of the architecting process but rather worked more closely with LSI Logic on transferring the design to the manufacturing stage.

"This was a collaborative effort. LSI was involved in implementation of the design in silicon. Sun architected the part and LSI converted the design into the layout and then the mask to produce the chip. If proprietary and foundry are two extremes, this is in the middle," Mr. Ranganath said.

The closer relationship is an extension of the work the two companies have done before, he said. "We had a classic foundry relationship before. The motivation here was to influence the design methodology so we can actually be on their (LSI's) leading edge technology in process and design tools. It's a time-to-market issue.

"This is the first of many chips to follow," Mr. Ranganath added, with subsequent versions already on the drawing board and slated for introduction later this year. Despite the deepening of their technology ties, the two companies do not have plans to co-market any products, he noted.

The microSparc-IIep processor, in 100MHz and 133MHz versions, will be manufactured on LSI's G10 0.35-micron (drawn)/0.25-micron (Leff) process. It is currently sampling and is scheduled to ship in volume in 3Q97, priced at $95 each in quantities of 10,000 units for the 133MHz version and $75 for the 100MHz version.