Toshiba Demonstrates Cell Microprocessor

Cybro writes "Toshiba has demonstrated some cool applications for the Cell Microprocessor. They also revealed that they have written their own OS for the new processor. However the article on TechOn does not reveal the license of the OS."

Comments

Background For Those Unfamiliar With Cell

[tquinlan]

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-1. ars
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-2. ars
http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.htm l

ARTICLE TEXT:

[Anonymous Coward]

Toshiba Demonstrates Cell Microprocessor Simultaneously Decoding 48 MPEG-2 Streams
Apr 25, 2005 14:15

Toshiba demonstrated that its Cell microprocessor, jointly developed with the Sony Group and IBM Corp., can simultaneously decode 48 SDTV format MPEG-2 streams. At the COOL Chips VIII event held in Yokohama from April 20 to 22, 2005, the company showed a film demonstrating the decoding process.

In the film, 48 MPEG-2 streams stored on a HDD were read, decoded and projected onto a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells, each of which showed a different video in each cell. The company expects the technology to be used to display thumbnails for a video list. Of the eight synergistic processor elements (SPE) used in the Cell, six are used for decoding 48 MPEG-2 streams and one is used for scaling the screen. The remaining SPE can be used for a completely different processing function.

In the demonstration, Toshiba used an operating system environment it had developed to increase the efficiency of Cell software development. One of the environment's key features is that application software developers can program software without considering which threads will be allotted to each of the different SPEs, because the environment allows the automatically scheduling software to SPEs.

Not much info

[Ironsides]

It doesn't say anywhere what the bitrates of the originating SD streams were. That is a biggie in terms of processing power. MPEG2 can run from 1.5Mbps (crap) to 50 Mbps (I Frame only, dam good) and higher. Give me more info and I might be impressed.

Re:Not much info

[benwaggoner]

Actually, the I-frame only is quite a bit easier to decode, since it doesn't require motion estimation, doesn't reference multiple frames, etcetera. It's almost identical to a series of JPEGs at 29.97 frames per second.

In normal IBBP MPEG-2, a given B-frame will reference frames either direction of it, requiring two frames be buffered in memory, and a lot of moving around of data from those two frames.

WMP?

[oiarbovnb]

I swear the screenshot looks like it is WMP... I can't believe that windows is going to work on the CELL. Anybody have any info on what OS will be supported (other than the Toshiba OS?)

Re:WMP?

[vectorian798]

You are right that it looks EXACTLY like WMP in full-screen mode. However, it seems unlikely that they ported it over to the weird OS they have going. Most likely they decode the streams and send raw data streams over a fast gigabit ethernet over to a comp with a media player that just chugs it through onto the screen. Or something like that anyways.

I am still

[Anonymous Coward]

totally baffled how one could write something for the cell that we would traditionally call an "OS". At least, a time sharing OS. Who gets to use the SPE/APU/SPUs, and when? The attatched memory on the SPEs is nontrivial to swap to memory, and it seems absurd to think that it would just be done offhand with a context switch. Yet, context switches must happen. So are SPEs merely given to processes, who get to keep them, so that the main processor is switching betwen processes normally in a preemptive style but the SPEs stay under the control of single processes?

Or is the Cell OS Toshiba's using here non-multitasking or cooperative multitasking? Or what?

Re:I am still

[adam31]

I am also baffled. But the SPE has a memory size of only 256kb and 25 GByte/s bandwidth to main memory, so it's not like a context switch is out of the question. Also I'm pretty sure that each SPE can run 2 threads SMP (or is that just the Power chip?)

It probably is a combination of the method you describe (where a SPE is dedicated to a thread) and traditional pre-emptive... And it probably boils down to the more processor-intensive threads get their own SPE, while a couple SPEs are dedicated to context-switching threads.

To me, that part is not as baffling as how programs are going to be written in the first place. A thread will have to communicate all the memory accesses it will need to make to prefetch all that data. On the PS2, we use environments like this, where that memory would be double- or triple-buffered so we can simultaneously stream, process, and write-back... but that's hand-written individually for the hardest-core processing pieces, where memory accesses are predictable and sequential. How to do this in a general way to make the process easier on application developers?

That's never really been a concern for Sony...

Re:what does it do?

[A Dafa Disciple]

Video Games

Huh?

[garcia]

Well, in this picture I see a movie file being played (on what seems to be WMP) showing the cells on the screen.

Now, I wasn't there, nor was the article really in depth by any means, but it would seem to me that this was nothing more than a movie demonstration and nothing live.

I'm not quite so impressed. Maybe we should start linking to real content from the front page (i.e. in-depth accounts and not some blogger's one page summary with a blurry photo of a movie file being played on a projection screen).

Re:what does it do?

[beef3k]

No, none whatsoever.

The PlayStation 3 will be nothing but a DVD player capable of playing back 150 movies at the same time.

Which is kind of sad really, I would have hoped for more.

perhaps more interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Ken Kutaragi Talks about Cell

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050 407/103542/

The interesting thing to me here

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't even *exactly* how impressive a multitasking feat it was, but that if I'm reading the article right, the 48-stream decoding thing was done *entirely by the auxillary processor units*. That is, the "SPE"s. The main [PPE] processor in the Cell was apparently not really doing anything at the time. This seems to bode wel for the usability of the SPEs.

Re:The interesting thing to me here

[marcansoft]

That is *exactly* what they are there for. The real power of the Cell comes from the SPEs, not from the main PPC which is mainly there to control them and move data around. The SPEs do the number crunching.

This does prove though that each SPE can handle 8 MPEG-2 streams with no problem (equivalent; probably they are used in a pipeline fashion so really saying one "does" 8 streams isn't too real, but they can do 48 streams as a whole. The typical thing is one for each major step of decoding.)

Re:The interesting thing to me here

[imsabbel]

Have you looked closer at cell?
those "auxillary processor units" make up 75% of the die and have 95% of the computing power of cell.

Mebbe it can power

[KingBahamut]

this............
http://www.lod.org/Projects/Other//index.htm

That Cell microprocessor is pretty good...

[TripMaster Monkey]

...but the smart money's on the Goku miccroprocessor.

^_^

Business Idea

[3770]

Here is a business idea for some small to mid size hardware company.

The CELL processor is cool and the geeks love it and it is based on the POWER architecture. Surely, it'll run Linux.

Build a machine with the CELL. Don't follow any standards (well, use PCI and PCI express Serial ATA and USB 2.0 and stuff like that). But just make sure that you are first out the door with a box.

And make it cheap. It must be possible to make it cheap since it will be sold in the PS3.

I bet that there'll be a lot of enthusiasts that will buy it and be early adopters which will help you work out the bugs.

And then, a year after your first release you'll have a computer that is very fast for its price and a system which is source code compatible with the largest source code library in the world.

Well, I know I'd consider buying one.

Re:Business Idea

[LWATCDR]

"and make it cheap. It must be possible to make it cheap since it will be sold in the PS3."

Nope you will have to develop a chipset for it and that is not cheap. It is unlikely that Sony will hand over the supporting chipset for the PS3 to anyone. Cheap comes from big numbers and there is no such thing as a lot of enthusiast. At least when we are talking about the number it would take to make this cheap.
The only two I can see doing this are IBM and Apple.
A Cell based Mac mini as the ultimate gaming platform would be interesting. I could see this as part of IBMs plan of world domination. They dump the Intel line on china and then push for the Power/CELL to replace it. A Cell based workstation running Linux or even Windows talking to a Cell/Power based server. All with IBMs blessing. IBM goes back to being the master of it's own destiny with no real need to make nice with Microsoft or Intel.

The Perfect OS for the Cell Processor

[MOBE2001]

I got the perfect OS for the Cell Processor. I just need funding. :-D

The COSA Operatin System

See also the link below.

RTFA please: (to those talking about Windows, WMP)

[llamalicious]

"... the company showed a film demonstrating the decoding process.

In the film, 48 MPEG-2 streams stored on a HDD were read, decoded and projected onto a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells, each of which showed a different video in each cell. The company expects the technology ..."

If you bothered to read the article contents, you'll see that they simply showed a video of the process actually working.

This is a far cry from a live tech demo, but if they can really pull it off, definitely shows the power of a Cell.

Maybe ToshibaTVs can do 720P correctly with this.

[PornMaster]

Wouldn't it be nice to combine this article and the previous one and have a Cell to make your 720p TV display 1080i content properly? :)

Threads and units

[Spy der Mann]

From TA:

In the demonstration, Toshiba used an operating system environment it had developed to increase the efficiency of Cell software development. One of the environment's key features is that application software developers can program software without considering which threads will be allotted to each of the different SPEs, because the environment allows the automatically scheduling software to SPEs.

Now *THIS* is the interesting part on their OS. Because the SPEs have different kinds. When I looked at the cell architecture, I thought: "Programming for this thing is going to be a MAJOR MESS!"

Thumbs up for Toshiba on figuring this out AND doing something about it.

OS for Cell and Cell Application

[vectorian798]

For all those talking about what kind of OS Cell will run:
ZDNet Article on Cell

The article is dated in some ways (like when it says 16 cores...I believe it is half that right?) but it does point out some interesting things, for example, like the fact that there will be a Cell SDK and a end-user OS aimed at embedded devices and the like.

If you google around for 'cell forums' you will come across interesting discussions where they point out that linux will be ported very quickly to cell and that IBM has hinted at possible uses for Cell as a workstation. Also, Cell is OS NEUTRAL meaning that it does not have any particular hardware functionality that makes one OS run any faster.

Overall, I would say that since market penetration is needed, you can't just say "Here is our OS and our SDK, use it from now on". The trick will be of course, to assuage the existing target audience who use today's OS's.

Also, note that the Cell is not a processor bred entirely for the PS3 or anything like that - it will be embedded in devices such as PVR's, TV's, music players, and in all likelyhood, it will even find its way to the desktop - with its potential it is likely to also find some niche in supercomputing since it will be cheap (if 4 whole cells can be thrown into a game console why not?)

Probably not an "OS" in the common sense

[Lemming Mark]

[ disclaimer: this is speculation but it's informed speculation - hopefully useful ]

It's worth bearing in mind this is unlikely to be an OS in the common sense. I'd rate it very unlikely that this OS supports such niceties as filesystems, network IO stacks, protected processes, etc - or that it ever will.

Rather, it's likely to be a shim (albeit a clever one) for insulating the developers of embedded-style applications from the real hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if this Toshiba OS is actually a "library operating system" which is linked into the application itself.

Don't think of it as an OS in the Linux sense, more as a toolkit / library for Cell programmers. Exactly how a "conventional" OS will run on the Cell is not clear to me but it seems certain that it can support a Linux-style OS well - otherwise it'd scupper Cell's World Domination plans ;-)

Maybe

[News for nerds]

this image can explain a lot for you?
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/photo/articles/2005/04/28 /coolchips1/images/016l.jpg