The Microprocessor Report has finally managed to pin LSI Logic Corp down and finally get it to admit that the gossips are right, and that Lightning ain’t gonna strike. LSI has trashed the Lightning high-end Sparc chip project, blaming it on an insufficient market since Sun Microsystems Inc is going with the Viking part it has jointly developed with Texas Instruments Inc. But in reality, the complexity of the super-pipelined chip may have strained LSI’s fabrication techniques. Metaflow Technology, which, backed by Hyundai Electronics Co’s financing, authored the Lightning design, is now busy on a next-generation approach code-named Thunder. Again it’s being bank-rolled by Hyundai and is apparently destined for a line of Hyundai Sparc boxes – but the part won’t be made by LSI.
