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A Glimpse Inside the Cell Processor

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ahh-scary-close-it-up dept.

XenoPhage writes "Gamasutra has up an article by Jim Turley about the design of the Cell processor, the main processor of the upcoming Playstation 3. It gives a decent overview of the structure of the cell processor itself, including the CBE, PPE, and SPE units." From the article: "Remember your first time? Programming a processor, that is. It must have seemed both exciting and challenging. You ain't seen nothing yet. Even garden-variety microprocessors present plenty of challenges to an experienced programmer or development team. Now imagine programming nine different processors all at once, from a single source-code stream, and making them all cooperate. When it works, it works amazingly well. But making it work is the trick."

7 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Oh yeah, I remember my first time by llamalicious · · Score: 4, Funny

    I was 17 and she was 26 and ... oh shit, wrong first time.

    1. Re:Oh yeah, I remember my first time by neonprimetime · · Score: 5, Funny

      I was 17 and she was 26 and

      Per chance, did you have a MySpace account, and your parents didn't know about your little shin-dig?

    2. Re:Oh yeah, I remember my first time by Rakshasa+Taisab · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm not familiar with any 26 processors, surely you meant 286?

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  2. Re:eh by Zediker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Console gamers get consoles because they can't deal with installing video card drivers."

    Nope, console gamers buy consoles because they offer games that dont appear on the PC and/or dont have the money to buy a pc gaming rig. $1200+ (im talking building from the ground up with reliable and decent parts) to just start getting a decent computer together usualy isnt as justifiable as spending ($100:GC, $130:DS, $150:PS2/Xbox, $200:PSP, $400:360) for a console of some sort.

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  3. Sega Saturn Redux? by ToxikFetus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As TFA mentioned, this has the potential of becoming another Sega Saturn boondoggle. Will the developers learn how to fully utilize this incredibly complex architecture? Relying on the "octopiler" to efficiently map to the Cell architecture seems a bit optimistic and naive.

  4. Re:memory speed? by Space+cowboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are misinformed.

    This is the speed at which the Cell can read RSX's local memory. Memory bandwidth for the Cell itself is ~25 GB/sec. If the Cell ever wants to access the private RAM of the RSX (why ?) it *is* possible, but it's a lot more efficient to use the normal pathway through main memory...

    Simon.

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    Physicists get Hadrons!
  5. Not NINE processors, only EIGHT, since... by Harry+Balls · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...on the average, one of the slave processors is non-functional.
    Read more about the yield problems of the Cell chip here:
    http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32978/

    Fabrication yield is estimated at only 10% to 20%, which is very low for the industry.

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