A consortium formed by IBM, Toshiba and Sony has unveiled a new revolutionary chip named “ CELL ” is a new. Four years of research were necessary to conceive and develop such a new architecture. CELL ’s uniqueness resides in its architecture, which, contrarily to current processors, is a so-called “Multi-Heart” chip that is built around a PowerPC 64 Bits, with which 8 secondary processors are constantly working. The 8 secondary chips second their “Master” in treating the massively parallel calculation. IBM has dubbed SPE, for Synergistic Processing Elements, this mode of group working. Divide to conquer: every task is “divided” in sub-tasks, each of which is entrusted with a specific calculation. “One of the processors will take care of the graphic component of a game, while some will handle three dimensional objects, and another one the sound etc.”, says Peter Hans Roth, IBM Boeblingen (Germany) Research Lab.
CELL can thus handle 10 different sets of instructions, against 2 for today’s INTEL processors. Using 234 Million, 90 nanometres engraved transistors it could work at 4 Gigahertz in the lab. It theoretically leads to a huge 256 Billion operations/Second, grossly equivalent to the power of a Super Calculator.
Moreover, IBM has redefined another technology, called “virtualisation”, which was recently unveiled by INTEL. This mode allows each processor to work separately from the others: “Thus, one processor is decompressing a video file, while another can capture a video input and compress it in real time” Peter Hans Roth explains.
So far, SUN Microsystems seems to be the sole competition with its Niagara multi-processor chip, but unlike CELL , the creators of which claim are targeting the world of Games & Entertainment, Niagara looks at the server market.
Yet, many questions arise when thinking of future commercial developments, especially on the side of software makers, who would have to adapt their babies to such a new environment. Says Paul O’Donovan, an analyst with Gartner: “it’s truly a risk, because I don’t see the developers accepting to re-write their software specifically for CELL . This problem is certainly one of the reasons why Sony has delayed the launch of its PlayStation 3, which is now not expected before H1 2006”.
Another pending question is the energy consumption. This factor can be critical for nomad machines, the battery life of which is limited. It is highly probable that CELL cannot be used on such machines for the time being.
Last but not least… the price. CELL must be affordable if it’s targeting the Consumer Electronics market, such as next generation DVD Players/Writers or High Def flat screens, yet when one knows about the components that shape it, it hard to think of CELL as adequately suited for such market. It is more in line with the world of servers or high cost workstations.
A lot of mystery then, but one cannot resist the temptation to imagine our next generation TV or Game station equipped with such an impressive device.