Fujitsu Corp. is developing Sparc64 processor featuring eight processing engines code-named Venus, which will power high-end servers by the company and, perhaps, Sun Microsystems, if the latter does not succeed in launching its code-named Rock before Venus hits the market.

The eight-core, or octa-core, Fujitsu Venus processor will be made using 45nm process technology and will succeed Sparc64 VII chip, which was released by Fujitsu and Sun in July, said Takumi Maruyama, a spokesperson for Fujitsu, at Hot Chips conference, reports IDG News Services. The Sparc Enterprise Servers use Fujitsu’s microprocessors and Sun’s Solaris 10 operating system. The two companies develop the systems in collaboration, but market and sell them separately.

The new Sparc64 “Venus” microprocessor will feature built-in memory controller and will be able to offer peak throughput of 128GFLOPs.

Since Sun’s own Rock sixteen-core processor is not expected to arrive on the market till the second half of 2009, Fujitsu’s Venus may also be used by Sun Microsystems to boost performance of its enterprise-class machines. Nevertheless, Sun has been implying for years that Rock will offer dramatic performance gains and address very large amounts of memory.

Unfortunately, it is still unclear when Fujitsu’s eight-core Venus is set to be available.

“I hope I can tell you more about it at Hot Chips next year,” said Mr. Maruyama.

Tags: Fujitsu, Sun, Rock, Venus, Sparc