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Prospects For the CELL Microprocessor Beyond Games

Posted by Zonk on from the tiny-but-brainy dept.

News for nerds writes "The ISSCC 2005, the "Chip Olympics", is over and David T. Wang at Real World Technologies put a very objective review of the CELL processor (the slides for the briefing are also available), covering all the aspects disclosed at the conference. Besides the much touted 256 GFlops single-precision floating point performance the CELL processor has 25-30 GFlops in double-precision, which is useful enough for scientific computation. Linus seems interested in CELL, too."

8 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Transmeta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why should Linus be interested in the cell when he has the Transmeta Crusoe?

  2. I bet this Cell processor will kick ass... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...playing The Game of Life.

    1. Re:I bet this Cell processor will kick ass... by ceeam · · Score: 4, Funny

      You mean.. If one part of this chip is surrounded by more than three other parts actually doing anything useful then it will die from overheating? : )

  3. Lost acronyms in the article.. by acomj · · Score: 2, Funny

    I like the fact that the presenters didn't remember/know what all the acronyms were in the cell diagram. I like the interview technique too. Get em drunk and watch em talk.

    I was wondering why the article was so in depth.

    Quoth
    "
    After some discussion (and more wine), it was determined that the ATO unit is most likely the Atomic (memory) unit responsible for coherency observation/interaction with dataflow on the EIB. Then, after the injection of more liquid refreshments (CH3CH2OH), it was theorized that the RTB most likely stood for some sort of Register Translation Block whose precise functionality was unknown to those outside of the SPE. However, this theory would turn out to be incorrect.
    "

  4. Thanks! by Eternally+optimistic · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yes, that is helpful indeed. Now, can you get me a few of these processors, so I can go port my own version?

    --
    What keeps me going is my inertia.
  5. Re:Linux on Cell by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Funny

    I use a particle accelerator with Windows all the time.

    I can't stand LCD monitors, CRT all the way ;)

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  6. Yes but... by GejTOO · · Score: 1, Funny

    does it run NetBSD? had to do it... sorry.

  7. Maybe... by gUmbi · · Score: 3, Funny

    Since IBM is now involved, should it be called the PS/3 instead of the PS3?