Sun Delays Server Chip

Updated from Feb. 7

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sun Microsystems(JAVA Quote) is delaying its next-generation server microprocessor by a year, as the company puts the chip through further testing.

The Santa Clara, Calif., computer company said it now plans to ship its so-called Rock chip in the second half of 2009, confirming earlier reports published on the online news site The Register.

The 16-core Rock chip, the next-generation of Sun's UltraSparc processor, was supposed to ship in the second-half of this year.

"Rock is an entirely new design and given its uniqueness and complexity, Sun is investing heavily to fully validate the chip and to do advanced testing on the entire hardware and software stack of future systems to be powered by Rock processors," the company said in an emailed statement, according to Information Week.

The company's statement added that early versions of the Rock chip are testing well in Sun's labs.

The Rock chip features novel computing techniques such as transactional memory, which is expected to improve the efficiency of multicore chip architectures. Sun presented information about the technology earlier this week at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.

Shares of Sun were up 6 cents at $16.39 in extended trading Thursday.