SUN SPARC / UltraSPARC / SuperSPARC RISC series

SUN SPARC / UltraSPARC / SuperSPARC RISC series A completely free processor uses the SPARC V8 instruction set

SPARC, an acronym for Scalable Processor Architecture, is a RISC-type processor architecture, originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design is strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC architecture, developed in the early 1980s. SPARC is one of the first commercial successes of the RISC architecture family, influencing many processors produced during the 1980s and 1990s.

The first implementation of the original 32-bit architecture (SPARC V7) dates back to 1987, within the Sun-4 and various servers produced by Sun Microsystems, in order to replace the Motorola 68000 used on the Sun-3 systems.

The design and evolution of the architecture was entrusted in 1989 to an independent group, SPARC International, which continues to develop the architecture today.

The architecture has undergone three major revisions since its introduction in 1986:

SPARC V7: the original version,
SPARC V8: appeared in 1990, bringing some additional features,
SPARC V9 : appeared in 1993, marking the passage from 32 to 64 bits.
SPARC specifications are entirely free; moreover, unlike ARM or MIPS, the license required by companies to manufacture it is free, granted by SPARC International.

A completely free processor uses the SPARC V8 instruction set: the LEON. It is subject to the FSF LGPL license.

The SPARC V7 also gives rise to the development of the ERC32 processor, which is radiation tolerant and used in the space domain.

SUN SPARC / UltraSPARC / SuperSPARC RISC series A completely free processor uses the SPARC V8 instruction set