Sun has put out its promised UltraSparc T2 Reference Design Kit (RDK), meant to accelerate the design, development and testing of T2 processor-based embedded systems designs. T2 has eight cores and eight threads per core, and boasts one of the industry's highest energy efficiencies per thread.

Sun is trying to build an ecosystem for its chip-multithreading (CMT) technology. It's aiming at telco and network infrastructure, as well as network security devices. The RDK supports Solaris 10 and next year Wind River's Platform for Network Equipment, Carrier Grade Linux (CGL), which the Solaris-toting Sun sees as critical to the T2.

See http://www.sun.com/products/microelectronics/support.jsp.