To better accomodate some of the newly emerging open and Web services-laced server software environments, leading chip makers will have to make some fundamental changes to their processor architectures, said one top Sun official on Wednesday.
According to Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's CTO, the "big, bad" processors such as Sun's Sparc, IBM's Power 4, and Intel's Itanium architectures will need the help of smaller, higher density chips that can be dedicated to specific functions such as throughput and storage. These are needed to more efficiently move data across, he said.
"Chip architectures must change to accommodate this 'optical server' kind of environment. These [smaller, higher density chips] aren't so big and bad but they are much more cost-effective to produce. We are working very aggressively in this area," Papadopoulos said.
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