Sun offers free chip designs to students

The company will train as many as 150 teachers a year on its OpenSparc designs as part of a three-year agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Education, David Yen, Sun’s chief of microelectronics, said in a telephone interview. OpenSparc offers free blueprints for Sun’s UltraSparc processors, which are used in its most powerful computers.

Sun, the fourth-largest server maker, is offering software and chip designs for free in an effort to expand its market share. The company, which has similar agreements to promote its chip technology with six U.S. universities, will work with Peking University, Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University at first, Yen said.

“China will have hundreds, if not thousands, of technically trained people who will be well versed in Sun’s processor design and programming,” Nathan Brookwood, an analyst with technology researcher Insight 64 in Saratoga, California, said in an interview. “They will go off to first jobs, influencing employers’ server purchases.”

Sun’s revenue in China grew 18 percent in the second quarter ended Dec. 30, spokesman Mark Richardson said, declining to give the actual figure. Sales for the UltraSparc T1 and T2 processors, the two chips that Sun provides free blueprints for, rose to US$285 million, he said.

“Sun is really the only company I know of that open- sources their hardware designs,” Brookwood said, referring to the practice of offering blueprints for free. “They’ve only been doing it for two years, so the jury is still out on whether the strategy will work.”

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