TI has announced that they won't build a 32nm fab due to the exorbitant (an estimated 3 billion dollars just for R&D, excluding the fab itself, quoted in EETimes) costs involved. The last fab TI will ever build is a 45nm fab. That's a fact. Google it.

After that: Quo vadis, SUN?

Join the consortium around IBM - IBM being a major competitor in the server market? (Guess who will get priority at the IBM fabs, and guess who will get the leftovers.)

No, in my humble opinion, SUN is rapidly running out of road with their proprietary architecture and they would be best advised to drop SPARC and migrate over to the Intel/AMD platform. Maybe their quickly expanding Intel/AMD-based product lineup is already the first sign of SUN's "abandon SPARC" strategy, which will then become final after everybody and his dog has moved to 32nm and SPARC is stuck at the 45nm node.

It looks like Sun's unexpected partnership with Intel came around the same time that TI chose to fire 500 fab engineers. Looks like Intel could be the one cranking out Sun's new CPU's at 45nm and beyond.

Analysis:

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=84862245-CF52-4630-B3A3-E2BCC68BDC4C

@Greg: Do you really need 32nm to build better processors or is this only an assumption injected into the business by Intel, as they need more and more real estate on die for their caches?

Step back only for a second, and look differently on the problem. And think for a second more systemic about stuff that that is public: Think about Rock ... think about proximity connects... shake it ... and ... well ... maybe you have a way to build Microsystems without the need for manufacturing technologies priced at a level that reaches almost the level of beeing unamortizable.

http://www.c0t0d0s0.org

TI laid off 500 engineers because their 45nm process is completely developed and TI has decided not to pursue 32nm.

The recent EETimes front page article sums it up nicely:

You need to have a certain revenue (EETimes estimates 13 billion dollars PER YEAR) to be able to amortize a 32nm fab and literally only a handful of companies (Intel, Samsung and the consortium led by IBM) are expected to ever get a positive ROI out of a 32nm fab. (Note the absence of AMD from this list - the EETimes article implies that it is very unlikely that AMD will ever build a 32nm fab of its own.)

Intel has no interest to nurse an architectural competitor on its figurative breasts - after all, SPARC is one of the reasons why Itanium is not taking off as hoped. If at all, Intel would try to rent out only EXCESS fab capacity (i.e. amid one of the periodical industry slumps), but even then they'd think twice to rent it out to a competitor in the processor industry.

The reason the SUN - TI partnership worked so nicely is because

(1) TI is not a competitor in the 64 bit microprocessor market

and

(2) TI is (up till now) not trailing far behind with respect to fab technology

With TI gone from the 32nm market, SUN has few, if any, options to find a fab partner who is not a direct competitor.

The logical option for SUN seems to be to abandon SPARC, probably a better option than seeing it (stuck at the 45nm node) becoming outclassed by Intel's and IBM's 32nm processors.

The saying is: "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight." Trying to compete against 32nm processors with a 45nm processor is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Sun's current processors (US-IV+ and US-T1) are 90nm designs. SPARC64-VI (dual-core Olympus chip) is a 90nm design. Niagara2, Rock (2008), and Jupiter (SPARC64-VI+, also 2008) are 65nm designs. Beyond these are any 45nm SPARC chips, which I would expect would be Niagara3 and Rock2. Realistically, these are 2010 systems offerings. Then beyond any Niagara3 and Rock2 would be 32nm processors, (Niagara4 and Rock3?), in 2012 or later.

Sun has plenty of time, and plenty of options. First of all, TI did not say it was exiting the 32nm chip market, only the 32nm fab business. So any fab partners would have to be using process compatible with TI's semicondutor design. These TI partner fabs may be able to fab 32nm Sun SPARC chips.

Second, Fujitsu is a major semiconductor fab, and to my knowledge, has not announced much around 45nm. Perhaps Fujitsu could skip 45nm and pursue 32nm.

Intel is certainly an option, as is AMD, and even IBM. I think Freescale has some fabs as well.

And as for your comment about 32nm vs. 45nm, one process revision does not a fight make. Intel always brings out its next process on desktop systems, while its more powerful Xeon server processors lag one generation. Similarly, Intel's more powerful Itanium lags Xeon by one generation (Itanium is still 90nm, and will not go to 65nm until Tukwila in 2008). Also, AMD's very capable Opteron is still 90nm, and competed with 65nm Xeon very well. Opteron is going to 65nm and true quad-core with Barcelona, only about six months ahead of Intel's 45nm Xeon transition.

One last thing, the very powerful IBM POWER5+, Intel Montecito dual-core Itanium, and Sun UltraSPARC T1 processors are all 90nm designs, and crush any 65nm processors out there.

High-end server processors are different than desktop PC or laptop processors, and always will fall a generation or two behind the state of the art.