Sun’s 400MHz UltraSparc II gets Microprocessor Report ‘Tail End Charlie’ award for worst integer performance of the current RISCs. It also gets a Report citation for ‘Stupid Compiler Tricks’ as Sun reports peak SPEC results for the CPU that exceed its SPECbase performance value by 24%. The UltraSparc III could catapult Sun from worst to first place in the RISC stakes if it ships as Sun expects by year-end, but the Report notes the UIII has already slipped six months and the part has not yet taped out. Other complex processors have take 12 to 18 months to tape out making a mid-2000 debut more likely.
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