Sun Microsystems Technology Used in Rendering Disney/Pixar's "Monsters, Inc."

250 Powerful Sun Servers Render Disney/Pixar's New Animated Film, "Monsters, Inc."

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- November 28, 2001 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced today that Disney/Pixar's latest animated feature film Monsters, Inc. was developed using technology from Sun Microsystems. The film's characters and scenes were brought to life in Pixar's powerful Renderfarm of 250 Sun Enterprise midrange servers.

Rendering is the time- and computationally-intensive process in which the correct lighting, textures and shading are applied to 3D computer models to produce sharp, colorful images with photorealistic detail. It is the critical final stage before a film reaches its audience. The rendering was completed in the Pixar Renderfarm, which is powered by 250 Sun Enterprise 4500 servers, running the Solaris Operating Environment, each using 14 UltraSPARC II microprocessors, 14 gigabytes of system memory and 196 gigabytes of local disk space for a total of 3,500 processors in production with nearly four terabytes of main memory.

"In building the Pixar Renderfarm, Pixar and Sun harnessed the power of technology to bring imagination to life - monsters and all," said Clark Masters, vice president and general manager, Enterprise Systems Products for Sun Microsystems. "In our long-term relationship, we've delivered the reliable, scalable and available technology that helps Pixar meet the rigorous requirements of film production, inspiring awe in audiences around the world."

Pixar's Renderfarm has run on Sun technology for nearly six years through the creation of "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life" and "Toy Story 2." For its first implementation in 1995, Pixar adopted Sun's SPARCstation 20 workstations, and later migrated to the Enterprise 4000, the Enterprise 4500 servers and Sun Fire 3800 servers.

"We've worked with Sun because their computers are powerful, reliable, and easy to manage," explained Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation Studios. "We also value Sun's binary compatibility across product generations. By maintaining the continuity of their SPARC chips and the Solaris Operating Environment, Sun makes it easy for us to take advantage of their newest, most powerful technology."

About Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar Animation Studios (Nasdaq: PIXR) combines creative and technical artistry to create original characters and stories in the medium of computer animation. Under its partnership with Disney, Pixar has created and produced the first computer-animated feature film, the Academy Award-winning Toy Story, released in 1995; A Bug's Life, the highest grossing animated film released in 1998; and Golden Globe-winner Toy Story 2, the highest grossing animated film released in 1999. The Northern California studio's current films include Monsters, Inc., which was released on November 2, 2001, and Finding Nemo, scheduled for a summer 2003 release.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, UltraSPARC, SPARCstation, Sun Enterprise, Sun Fire, Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.