Eight brains on a chip
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COMPUTER heavyweights have revealed the inner workings of a new chip made with eight independent "brains".
The chip will provide the intelligence for Sony's next PlayStation games console and the next generation of home computing devices.
Dubbed a "supercomputer on a chip", the Cell microprocessor was unveiled yesterday at a conference in San Francisco, where the three electronics giants -- IBM, Sony and Toshiba -- boasted of a chip that could provide 10 times the performance of the latest PC chips.
The Cell chip has been in development since 2001 and could provide stiff competition for Intel, which has ruled the PC chip market since the mid-80s.
The chip uses eight cores or brains co-ordinated by a central core based on IBM's PowerPC chip. Each core can run a different program simultaneously, whereas current single-core chips faced with multiple tasks must share out their processing power to each task.
Single-core processors also hit a performance wall due to heat problems.
While the device is expected to turn up in everything from smart TVs to super computers, one of the Cell's first jobs will be generating complex graphics while keeping gameplay smooth for Sony's PlayStation 3 games console, due out in 2006.
One question mark over the Cell is how much software will be written to take advantage of the chip's powers, said Kevin Krewell, the editor of Microprocessor Report.
Intel will not stand still while the Cell emerges from the prototype stage -- the market dominator is already trialling chips with two brains in one.
Article submitted by: Redhot_2oo3
Last Update: 02-09-2005
Category: News
The chip will provide the intelligence for Sony's next PlayStation games console and the next generation of home computing devices.
Dubbed a "supercomputer on a chip", the Cell microprocessor was unveiled yesterday at a conference in San Francisco, where the three electronics giants -- IBM, Sony and Toshiba -- boasted of a chip that could provide 10 times the performance of the latest PC chips.
The Cell chip has been in development since 2001 and could provide stiff competition for Intel, which has ruled the PC chip market since the mid-80s.
The chip uses eight cores or brains co-ordinated by a central core based on IBM's PowerPC chip. Each core can run a different program simultaneously, whereas current single-core chips faced with multiple tasks must share out their processing power to each task.
Single-core processors also hit a performance wall due to heat problems.
While the device is expected to turn up in everything from smart TVs to super computers, one of the Cell's first jobs will be generating complex graphics while keeping gameplay smooth for Sony's PlayStation 3 games console, due out in 2006.
One question mark over the Cell is how much software will be written to take advantage of the chip's powers, said Kevin Krewell, the editor of Microprocessor Report.
Intel will not stand still while the Cell emerges from the prototype stage -- the market dominator is already trialling chips with two brains in one.
Article submitted by: Redhot_2oo3
Last Update: 02-09-2005
Category: News
Current rating: 5.46 by 41 users
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