Sun on Monday unveiled a new processor, its fastest yet while requiring about the same electricity it takes to power a standard household light bulb. At 70 watts of consumption, the chip uses less than half the power of most server CPUs. Competing chips from Intel or IBM require anywhere from 150 to 200 watts.

The UltraSparc T1 "Niagara" will be an eight-core processor, with each core capable of handling up to four processes. The chips are expected to make their debut in new Sun Fire servers that Sun will release before the end of the year.

"It's time the technology industry took a stand - tripling your datacenter performance shouldn't mean tripling your power bill and needing more coal fired power plants," said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's President and Chief Operating Officer.

The company has recently begun an initiative to call for more responsibility in the technology industry over environmental concerns. Sun is working on ways to make its systems use less power, manufacture systems with materials that are less harmful to the environment, as well as leading the industry in reuse and recycling of used computers.

According to Sun, if all the world's Web servers were replaced with half the number of Niagara based systems, carbon-dioxide emissions would be cut by the same amount as planting a million trees.

However, on a business level, the change is also aimed at turning around the company's suddenly struggling server business. Sun's revenue declined 5.3 percent last quarter, while competitor IBM saw a 4.1 percent increase, and HP server revenue jumped 11.5 percent.

The changes in Sun's fortunes have also led the company to look into ways to cut the prices of its entry-level servers, while expanding support for a variety of platforms and offering customers a subscription based model for buying hardware and software.

However, the company feels that it can balance both environmental concerns as well as those of performance issues, and still provide good financial returns for its investors.

"Sun is sending a message to the industry that the problems associated with power and cooling are just as important as keeping up with performance," said Vernon Turner, group vice president and general manager of IDC's Enterprise Computing.