Sun cancels Rock processor

 

Gallery

By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 16 Jun 2009 at 10:26

Sun has cancelled its "Rock" server chip project after more than five years of development, according to the New York Times.

The UltraSparc-RK chip, codenamed Rock, consisted of 16 cores and was intended to compete with Intel in the server processor market.

Several release dates have come and gone with no sign of a commercial product, and the company is now thought to have ended development entirely. If that is the case, Sun will be forced to continue relying on processors from Fujitsu.

Sun is currently going through a takeover bid from database firm Oracle, which is likely to see $5.6bn change hands. Sun shareholders will vote on the purchase in four weeks.

The loss of the chip will be unlikely to discourage Oracle from continuing with its proposed takeover. Released documents earlier this year showed that the firm was only interested in Sun's software assets when it initiated its takeover bid.

However, Oracle boss Larry Ellison has denied that he will sell off the remaining hardware business once the deal completes.

"We are definitely not going to exit the hardware business," said Ellison. "If a company designs both hardware and software, it can build much better systems than if they only design the software. That's why Apple's iPhone is so much better than Microsoft phones."

Sun was not available for comment at the time of writing.