Sun Microsystems, maker of the SPARC processor confirmed that it has delayed the release of their much awaited 16-core Rock processor. The release of the next-generation of UltraSparc processor, originally expected to be released in the middle of this year has been pushed back to second half of 2009 to give the company more time to test it.

Sun’s Rock processor is the first CPU to implement scout threads and transactional memory which are expected to become increasingly important for multicore processors. Each of Rock’s cores has two simultaneous computing threads and supports up to two scout threads. The latter can pre-fetch, execute, and retire instructions in an out-of-order fashion without using traditional, complex out-of-order memory structures.

“Rock is an entirely new design and given its uniqueness and complexity, Sun is investing heavily to fully validate the chip and to do advanced testing on the entire hardware and software stack of future systems to be powered by Rock processors,” the company said in an e-mailed statement. “Systems based on the Rock processor are expected to be available in the second half of calendar year 2009.”

Despite the delay, Sun insisted there were no major technical problems. “Sun continues to evolve its systems portfolio on multiple fronts and early Rock chips are testing well in Sun Labs,” the company said.

Popularity: 1% [?]