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Supercomputer on a Chip Nears Completion

By David Worthington, BetaNews

September 16, 2004, 10:46 PM

According to the Nikkei Journal Toshiba president Tadashi Okamura has confirmed that the designs for the "CELL" microprocessor are nearing completion. The CELL is a collaborative effort between IBM, Sony and Toshiba to design an unconventional next-generation, grid-enabled multimedia processor that has been referred to as a "supercomputer on a chip."

While exact details on CELL continue to elude the press, what is known is that CELL will power Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3 gaming console, be used in IBM's computers and throughout Toshiba's consumer electronic product lines.

Since it is grid-enabled, CELL is capable of utilizing high-bandwidth communications networks to distribute processing workloads between multiple devices. As a result of this capability, a single unit could conceptually achieve ultra-scale high performance computing (HPC) without the need for a supercomputer.

Wide-scale production of the CELL is scheduled to commence next year. A workable demo of the PlayStation is expected to be ready in time for next year's E3 trade show and Sony has claimed that CELL-powered graphics workstations could become available as soon as this Winter.

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By tripperdan99

posted Feb 7, 2005 - 5:41 PM

Thought that this was really leading edge until I saw that RamBus was in the mix.

So Sad

tripperdan99

Score: 0

By bolaris

posted Feb 9, 2005 - 1:51 AM

That depends on what role it plays throughout the architecture. It might be all that is needed for its specific purpose on the chip. Anything faster might be overkill. Who knows?

Score: 0

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