IBM-Sony-Toshiba Reveal New Cell Processor Details

BBCWatcher writes "The three main partners in the Cell Processor initiative announced technical details of the new architecture. IBM's documents are particularly revealing. There's much more information on how developers, including open source developers, can access the SPUs (Synergistic Processor Units). As reported earlier, Sony will put the Cell into every Playstation 3 game machine, due early next year. And yes, Cell runs Linux."

Comments

Does it run...

[ViaNRG]

oh, here are my glasses...

Synergistic Processor Units?

[ponds]

Synergistic Processor Units?

That's it, the Playstation 3 will definately win the next console war due to exploiting its Synergistic Processor units and developing core competencies to sustain a long-term competitive advantage in the new paradigm. Now that word is out on the blogosphere, Microsoft should just give up.




Bingo, BTW.

Re:Synergistic Processor Units?

[ameline]

Not just buzzword compliant, but confusing as hell for those of us who have been in the know for a while.

To me, SPU always made me think "Scalar Processing unit", while PPE made me think "Parallel Processing Element".

Of course that's exactly backwards.

That, and I choke on words like "synergistic" because they peg my bullshiat-o-meter way off in the red.

In my opinion one of the coolest features of this architecture are the way the reciprocal estimate and reciprocal square root estimate instructions work.

In a single cycle you get 13 good bits of precision -- with the low order bits filled with information to be used by the floating point interpolate instruction.

You can get a full precision (32 bit ieee float) reciprocal in about 6 cycles, and a 1/sqrt in 7 or so. Oh, and that's 4 results in that time. Averaging 1.5 cycles per FP divide, and slightly more for sqrt. times 7, times 3.2 billion per second, and the bandwidth to feed it.

That's several orders of magnitide faster that you could do with any x86 part out there.

Ha Ha

[robyannetta]

This 'new revolutionary cell-based processor' sticks in my mind as the same 'new revolutionary cell-based processor' that Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson said would change the world in Terminator 2 and look where it got him.

Don't forget to chain enough PS3's together to enable the "Sarah Connor" easter egg.

Non-soul-stealing no-registration link

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM = evil soul-stealing registration-required site

Sony = http://cell.scei.co.jp/ in EN and JP

Re:Non-soul-stealing no-registration link

[morcheeba]

Thanks! I still got a little soul suckage from that site, though. Check out the EULA - talk about broad (luckily I can do these things once I'm no longer using the site):

Prohibited Conduct
Following acts are not allowed when using this Web Site:
(1) Infringing the legal rights (including, but not limited to, the rights of privacy and publicity) of SCEI and/or others
(2) Causing any damages or disadvantage to SCEI and/or others
(3) Disturbing public order
(4) Criminal act
(5) Defaming, disgracing or libeling SCEI and/or others
(6) Uploading files that contain viruses or corrupted files that may damage the operation of SCEI's and/or others' computers
(7) Activities that are unlawful or prohibited by any applicable laws
(8) Any other activities that SCEI deems inappropriate

Linux is everywhere.

[8086ed]

And yes, Cell runs Linux.

First thing I thought of when I read it was "Duh."

I run Linux on my toaster.

... I said that as a joke, but to be sure it hadn't been done, I googled it. I was wrong.

Well, it finally happened

[glwtta]

SPUs (Synergistic Processor Units)

They finally have a TLA with "synergy" in it... doesn't that Godwin the technology, or something?

Incidentally, are they fresh spu? Most civilized people can't stomach spu fresh.

Synergy

[Limburgher]

So it will be utilizing synergy. That's good. I like my solutions to be customer-focused, and above all synergized. :)

Developers is developers!

[greythax]

There's much more information on how developers, including open source developers...

HOW DARE YOU! You can't include open source developers as a sub category of developers! When you say developers, you better mean closed source developers! We don't let that open source scum use our compilers and such, so we refuse to let the word "developers" mean "all developers". Don't you go insinuating that it should include OTHER TYPES OF DEVELOPERS when we say DEVELOPERS!

And while we are at it, Perl Developers aren't developers either. Lump them in the cryptographers, we don't want them.

Re:We'll start with 3D...

[Slashcrap]

Not to be a buzz kill, but it looks like we'll have to wait for a lot of development and middle ware maturity before we see the real potential in cell processors.

Yes, but why worry about something so trivial when we've got anti-gravity technology?

http://www.blachford.info/quantum/gravity.html

And faster than light travel?

http://www.blachford.info/quantum/fastlight.html

Blachford is just as qualified to talk about processor technology as he is about physics. He's an attention seeking charlatan lacking either the experience or qualifications to contribute anything but hype and bullshit. And he's becoming just as ubiquitous and irritating as that Piquapelle prick.

Re:Some other info:

[recycledpork]

Probably isn't quite as in-depth, though.

How the fuck did a post which explicitly states it has less information that the main story get modded Informative?