Let's talk a bit more about the Cell processor 
The Cell processor is the result of a joint effort between IBM , Sony and Toshiba to develop a next generation processor, which is also the heart of the console PlayStation 3 . These efforts have been developing together since over 3 years and cost over 400 million U.S. dollars . This processor is designed for workloads and computationally intensive applications broad band with multimedia content , among which include games , movies and other forms of digital content . This architecture consists of an IBM POWER processing elements and multiple SIMD vector (instruction-multiple data) able to make important calculations in floating . This processor is scalable and can be used in a wide variety of devices, from televisions to workstations .
The details of the architecture were published in the ISSCC (International Conference on Solid State Circuits) from 6 to 10 February 2005 in San Francisco . Some features of this architecture are:
The first generation of this chip works at 4.8 Ghz and the version installed on the PS3 to 3.2 Ghz.
This is the technology that Sony, Toshiba and IBM intend to use to flood the market with devices using its highly scalable, enabling systems, in principle, little power calculation, competing scientific supercomputers.
Linux and PS3
In brief p
WORDS , the Cell processor consists of a core 64-bit Power / PPC general purpose DSP cores connected to 8 special purpose (or SPU). The basic architecture is described by IBM as a "system on a chip" (SoC) but prefers ArsTechnica
describe as a "network on a chip", and I think it is more correct. The eight SPUs are essentially complete "Computers" vector, since they consist of relatively simple CPU with its own storage, all connected to each other and with the PPC core. The magic is that this processor (the first generation
is 4.8 Ghz ) will be able to use broadband connectivity for ultra high speed ("ultra high-speed
") to interoperate with another processor like be a great system. Similar to the system in which neural cells interoperate over the network of the brain. (Wow. should be called "Brain Cell.")
What does this have to do with GNU / Linux, PlayStation 3 and Apple? Well
first of all, we start with the latter. Apple and IBM just took different paths.
Apple chose Intel (x86) instead of keep using IBM technology (Power / PPC). Consider this for a second. Apple uses PowerPC and Cell processors has a PowerPC core. So far so good, and theoretically Apple could have used the power giga flops (15 GFlops of G5 versus 218 GFlops of Cell) to continue on that path. At the end of the day,
8 of the 15 Top Supercomputers are Power / PPC . The first problem is that all that power still is not portable and Apple sells more notebooks than desktop stations (the strength of Intel, which now promises a Pentium
M "Yonah" dual core 2 Ghz Laptop in 2006 ). The second is that to embed a PPC core in the Cell,
had to simplify your unit VMX / AltiVec (grace of the G5) to the level that is not better than the VMX / AltiVec G4. The third reason is that as Apple would have had to re-optimize
all to take advantage of the SPUs. Technically they could have, but have already invested heavily in AltiVec and this processor is relatively weak in AltiVec.
The Cell
strengths make it a perfect candidate to be the processor, say anything, a PlayStation, and (Oh! surprise) actually
is the heart of the forthcoming PlayStation 3 . With 218 GFlops is incredibly powerful, but nowhere near a "supercomputer" (no matter what I say Sony, the
BlueGene, the world's most powerful supercomputer consisting of 131.072 processors, produces 91.750 GFlops), nay, nor reached to enter the Top 500
. Grace is the Cell processor is optimized for network activities, audio and video. Perfect for an entertainment center (Nintendo and Microsoft both use processors Power / IBM PPC but only Sony uses a Cell processor). In the case of the PlayStation, Cell uses a CPU with a PowerPC core at 3.2 Ghz and 8 SPUs at 3.2 Ghz each (with 1 reserved for redundancy), delivering a floating point performance of 218 GFlops (again, PowerMac G5 = 15 GFlops). Additionally have a dedicated GPU (graphics processor), developed by NVIDIA, RSX and 550 Mhz processing 1.8 TFlops. Now imagine the types of
"Enchulame the Machine" installing 3 of those in a Honda Integra.
interesting thing is not just that in mid-2006 we will have a computer that costs between $ 300 and $ 500 with 2 TFlops (CPU + GPU) power and a processor capable of operating in environments of collaborative process, delivering the load on all processors that are on network (such as a cluster operates on Gigabit Ethernet networks or Fibre Channel). In addition, Sony announced it will support Linux and will come installed on a removable hard drive that will be sold by them. Cell
Linux is more advanced than it appears. LinuxTag 2005 in
Arnd Bergmann appeared talking about his work on that:
"Unlike SMP systems or multi-core chips (multi-core), only the general purpose PowerPC core is able to run generic operating system, while the SPUs are specialized to run computational tasks. Porting Linux to run on the PowerPC core Cell processor is a relatively simple by the similarities existing platforms like the IBM pSeries or Apple Power Mac, but does not provide access to the vast computational power of the SPUs.
have proposed a model to provide an interface that tries to integrate well to existing set of system calls in Linux and allow software developers to easily integrate the use of SPUs to their own libraries and applications. "
