Cell is not limited to game
systems. IBM and its partners have announced
a Cell-based systems and solutions leveraging the investment into the high-performance
Cell architecture. Other future uses include HDTV sets, home servers,
game servers, and supercomputers.
In addition to providing a scalable
execution platform for a variety of applications, Cell
is also a scalable system architecture. As such, Cell is
not limited to a
single chip, but is a scalable system. The number of attached SPUs
can be varied, to achieve different power/performance and price/performance
points.
The Cell architecture was conceived as a modular,
extendible system where multiple Cell subsystems each
with an IBM 64-bit Power ArchitectureTM
core and attached SPUs, can form a symmetric
multiprocessor system.
The first Cell implementation can be
used to build single-node system, or dual-node systems
with up to 2 Power ArchitectureTM cores and
16 SPUs without glue logic. Larger systems can be
integrated using a switch architecture.
The IBM BladeCenter
QS20 Cell Blade uses a dual-node configuration to provide users with
a Cell B.E. system with 2 PPEs and 16 SPEs.
Together with Los Alamos National Labs, IBM will
be building a Cell-based
supercomputer code-named RoadRunner that will be the first
system to cross the mythical petaflop barrier.
IBM is working
with Mercury Computer Systems to bring a variety of industrial Cell
solutions to the market, including unprecedented realtime
medical imaging with Cell.
And of course the Cell Broadband Engine is at the
heart of Sony's ground-breaking Playstation 3 game console.
Cell BE systems in the Playstation 3 use Cell chips which have 7 SPEs
enabled in hardware, and 6 SPEs available to application programs.
In addition to playing exciting games and watching digital content
in HD resolution, you can discover the exciting future of
high-performance programming with Linux
on the Playstation 3.
The University of Massachusetts has built a
supercomputer consisting of 16 PS3s called the Gravity Grid to
simulate the collision of two black holes. The researchers at UMass
report that each PS3 powered by a single Cell chip (with 6 SPEs
available to application programs) has the power
of 25 nodes of the world's fastest supercomputer.
