New Sun processor

After a year's delay, Sun Microsystems' 16-core "Rock" server chip is on track for delivery later this year.

The processor will have a new, multi-threaded design and 16 cores. It will be targeted at enterprise servers that process data-intensive applications like databases.

Sun, along with other chipmakers, is continuously adding cores to chips for more processing power. Intel and AMD offer quad-core chips for servers, and Intel is due to come out with an eight-core server chip codenamed Nehalem-EX later this year. Sun's chips also compete with IBM's Power6 processors and Intel's Itanium chips.