Cell Processor

I BM, Sony and Toshiba have re- leased details of a new

processor being jointly developed by the three giants. Codenamed Cell, this

processor is intended for use in a variety of applications from consumer

electronics to desktops and supercomputers.

The three companies have been working on this 64-bit

processor for the past four years. Though a lot of details about the processor

are being kept under wraps for now, a Sony press release describes the . Cell as

"a multicore chip comprising a 64-bit power processor core and multiple

synergistic processor cores capable of massive floating point processing"

that is "optimized for compute-intensive work- loads and broadband rich

media applications".

To drive home the advantage of multiple cores in the

simplest of terms, having multiple cores means that these cores can divide the

work between themselves and get it done faster with simultaneous processing.

This is made possible by having support for multiple threads at the processor

level. Some unconfirmed reports have indicated that the Cell can integrate

between four and 16 cores into a single chip. While lower-end versions with four

cores would power embedded devices (such as set-top boxes),the 16-core versions

would find their way into desktops.

Implemented in 90 nanometer (nm) silicon-on-insulator (SOI)

technology, the Cell is designed to support multiple OSs and offers real-time

resource management for real-time applications. Work is still underway to reach

65 nm levels, which is what the Cell was sup- posed to achieve when the three

companies set out. The bus band- width offered to and from the main memory and

other companion chips is much greater than present-day processors.

Production of the chip is slated to begin at IBM's 300mm

wafer fabrication facility in East Fishkill, New York, during the first half of

2005.Thefirst product to showcase the Cell processor would be a PC being jointly

developed by Sony and IBM, which will go on sale in 2005. This PC would be

targeted at accomplishing animation work and other high-end graphics-intensive

tasks. Both Sony and Toshiba are looking to come out with high-definition

television sets powered by the processor in 2006. But the Cell-based product

that will probably make the maximum noise at ground level is the next version of

Sony's popular gaming console, Play Station. Sony is banking on this processor

to take the gaming experience to a whole new level, when it releases the Play

Station3 in the middle of 2005. But, as we said before, Cell isn't all about fun

and games. To get an idea about the power of the Cell processor, consider this:

just a single rack full of Cell-equipped systems would be powerful enough to

find itself all the way into the top 10 list of present-day supercomputers.

Further technical details about the processor would be

released by the three companies at the International Solid-state Circuits

Conference scheduled for February 6 to 10, 2005 in San Francisco. Stay tuned.

Kunal Dua