Expanding on its Sparc RISC plans further, Fujitsu Ltd has said that it will wind up the clock on its SparcRISC central processing unit – its Ross Technology Inc acquisition’s HyperSparc – to 1GHz by 1996, and is to introduce new products, from desktops through to supercomputers, based on single and multiple Sparc chips as part of a new open systems strategy. The plan is thought to be aimed at arresting the decline of the company’s system business, which if successful, could expand the Sparc market considerably: Sparc-owner Sun Microsystems Inc delivered 400,000 microprocessors last year. Fujitsu’s database servers, which are currently built on a proprietary architecture, will move to Sparc, and the firm is said to have already sold a handful of AP-1000 massively parallel systems with up to 1,000 Sparcs. The 1GHz Sparcs are destined for 10,000 MIPS machines – 1GHz 0.3 micron implementations should be reached by 1996. Fujitsu has got Ross doing the 32-bit Sparc development, while its HaL Computers Ltd investment is working on 64-bit technology.
