April 11, 2007 10:17 AM PDT
Sun CEO shows off high-end 'Rock' chip
Although Sun Microsystems is on the verge of announcing details of its Advanced Product Line server partnership with Fujitsu--systems that use the Japanese company's Sparc64 VI processor--Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz couldn't help but publish pictures of his company's own high-end "Rock" processor.
Rock has 16 cores, a high-end incarnation of the company's aggressive push toward cramming multiple cores on a single chip. Rock-based servers are due to ship in systems in the second half of 2008, the company has said.
The chip package has 2,395 pins, of which 812 are for communications between the chip and the rest of the server, Schwartz said.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank.
