Fujitsu Ltd has re-affirmed its commitment to Sun Microsystems Inc’s Sparc RISC with a new agreement that calls for the two to develop a common programming model for designing new generations of their respective Sparc CPU designs. Essentially they’ve agreed to let each other look at the IP each has where the Sparc design has been extended for specific functions and to share these extensions. It’s a technical exchange.
Fujitsu’s Hal Computer Ltd subsidiary designs the Sparc64 chip Fujitsu is using in its high-end Unix servers. Sun says the two have already created extensions to improve performance of their respective high-end processors which the agreement covers, and have implemented other system-specific work. Both have other extensions in the pipe.
About five years ago Fujitsu sealed its commitment to Sparc when it brought half a billion dollars of marketing, promotion and development investment and resources to the architecture. á
