With SunStudio 11 Sun introduced some new features http://developers.sun.com/sunstudio/documentation/ss11/mr/READMEs/c.html of the compiler, eg:

A New Default Format For Debugger Information

The C compiler now generates debugger information in the dwarf format by default. This change should be transparent, as the dbx and Performance Analyzer readily accept and prefer the dwarf format. You can generate debugger information in the stabs format by specifying -xdebugformat=stabs.

This results in binaries which have debug symbols included and therefore a size up to 6 times of the ‘normal’ size. Using the option -xdebugformat=stabs let the compiler use the stabs format. The binary becomes smaller.