Sun Performance and Tuning: Java™ and the Internet, Second Edition

SPARC Architecture and Implementation

The SPARC architecture defines everything that is required to ensure application-level portability across varying SPARC implementations. It intentionally avoids defining some things, like how many cycles an instruction takes, to allow maximum freedom within the architecture to vary implementation details. This is the basis of SPARC’s scalability from very low cost to very high performance systems. Implementation differences are handled by kernel code only, so that the instruction set and system call interface are the same on all SPARC systems. The SPARC Compliance Definition, controlled by the independent SPARC International organization, specifies this interface. Within this standard there is no specification ...