SPARCpohjaisia

SPARCpojaisia, also known as SPARC processors or simply SPARC, are a family of 32-bit and 64-bit reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors designed and developed by Sun Microsystems, now owned by Oracle Corporation.

The SPARC architecture was created in the late 1980s as a successor to Sun's preceding RISC architecture, the Sun-2. The name SPARC is an acronym for Scalable Processor Architecture, which reflects the design's aim at providing a highly scalable and modular architecture.

SPARC processors have undergone significant miniaturization in the years since their introduction, featuring advanced technologies such as submicron CMOS process technology, on-chip multiprocessing, and integrated L2 cache memories. They also support virtual memory addressing, which enables support for large address spaces and virtualization of system resources.

The instruction set architecture (ISA) of SPARC processors allows for highly efficient use of system resources. It implements most of its instructions in a single clock cycle, with sophisticated reordering and pipelining capabilities. This allows SPARC processors to achieve high performance levels, even in low-end implementations.

SPARC processors have been widely employed in various applications, including servers, workstations, and embedded systems. They are used by both commercial organizations and research institutions. System configurations supported by SPARC processors range from single-core systems to multi-threading systems with large processor pipelines.

Sun Microsystems, under license, released an open version of the SPARC architecture called OpenSPARC, through the OpenSPARC.org website. OpenSPARC licensed all aspects of Sun's SPARC architecture, allowing manufacturers to create their own SPARC-based hardware and software systems.