First Picture of a Cell Processor - Smaller Than a Pushpin, More Powerful Than a PC

[Jeremy Williamson]

It doesn't much matter, you need to design for maximum power draw
unless you want your system to shut down randomly. Well, actually I
suppose you could take the Intel route and use thermal throttling to
prevent maximum power draw from overloading a borderline cooling
solution, but I haven't heard of such a solution for the Cell.

Cell is performing thermal throttling as well. It's commonplace now (and in
all honesty it's just a first order technique).

I'm not sure that they will be reduced all that much. Leakage current
is going WAY up for the 65nm node. With over 200M transistors it's
going to be TOUGH to keep leakage in check.

True...

So it boils down to where your power is spent. Leakage current from 65nm
vs. the PPE and SPE functional units? Ahhh, I'd have to guess the
functional units but I don't have a firm enough grasp on power
considerations to be sure.

I'm sure that Sony will make a push for it, I'm just not convinced
yet. I would expect that the console will first come being rather
expensive ($500+?) and might have some trouble selling. Economies of
scale only take you so far, eventually you've got to pay for
everything.

Note that there are also some rumors floating around that the PS3
might use multiple Cell processors, not just one. Now, I'm not taking
these rumors as fact by any means, but if they do turn out to be
accurate then it would push the cost up quite a bit higher.

It's likely.

J

 

[Arrvindh Shriraman]

Despite my rather distaste for Rambus the company and recognizing that
their technology just doesn't fit into the PC realm, for the PS2 and
the PS3 their stuff makes VERY good sense.

With the way that the PS2 processor and this new Cell processor work,
combined with the nature of the machine (ie to play games), bandwidth
is likely to be quite important while latency will be somewhat less
so. Remember that these processors are going to be doing a lot of
work traditionally associated with GPUs in a PC. Rambus' solutions,
both XDR now and RDRAM back when the PS2 was new, do offer VERY high
per-pin bandwidth and that's just the sort of thing that these
consoles need. The processors also have integrated memory controllers
which helps avoid some of the potential issues with Rambus in PCs. To
top it off, the memory chips are getting soldered right onto the
system board rather than hanging off multidrop sockets on the system
board.

Basically a PC and the PS2/PS3 have rather different designs and
different requirements. Hmm.. different solutions for different
problems... whodda thunk it! :>

TAke a look at Alpha's Piranha , thats a perfect eg. of how ppl r trying
to employ Rambus for Server CMP technology

I guess my expectations for Cell were pretty high. But i guess most of
the size of the die is for accomodating the greater number of pins
required to feed the behemoth. 8 Vector processor on a die is close to
being the Cray's X1 node and they had to cool it using freon. I guess
the cache is way too small (2.5MB is nothing for a high performance
Vector processor)

 

[keith]

And cost $500 or more.

Not conducive to mass-marketing of game systems.

I'm not sure that's true. My son manages a "software" retail store. It's
amazing what people will spend. If he had a thousand Nintendo DS's
(whatever they're called) he could have sold 'em. He could have gotten
*big* bux on EBay for his SO's. Never underestimate the number of nuts
with serious money out there. They simply need to be convinced to part
with it. That phase seems to have long started.

 

[keith]

The example of Rambus done right is the Alpha EV7

Yeah, that helped the Q-Continuum a lot too!

 

[The little lost angel]

Has anyone figured out how this processor is actually going to improve
a television in any way? I'm really curious about this one. Just
what is it that they're planning on processing in the TV signal? DRM?

I think the concept is to make everything part of a distributed
computing network by using the same processing unit. Sure your TV
might not need that much processing power to handle HDTV decryption
but you can link it up to your Cell PC to offload some of that wedding
video encoding you're doing... along with your radio, refrigerator and
PDA.

Just think of how much $$$ we're talking about here if everything runs
on Cell so I'm sure they will figure out a way to use Cell in TV,
toilet flush and trash bin too PpPP
--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[NEXT BOX]

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/4967/

Intel has no answer to the 'Cell' processor; will Apple use it in
Macs?

Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - 11:50 PM EST



"IBM, Sony and Toshiba unveiled a new supercomputer-on-a-chip Monday
that could disrupt Intel's dominance of the computer industry and change the
nature of digital entertainment," Dean Takahashi reports for The San Jose
Mercury News. "The Cell chip will first be used in Sony's PlayStation 3
video console next year, with Toshiba planning to use the Cell in digital
television sets and IBM intending to put it in computer servers and work
stations in the near future."

"The partners say the first Cell chips, which can simultaneously
juggle multiple computing tasks, will have 10 times the processing power of
comparable Intel chips. Eventually, the technology could pack the power of a
supercomputer in a handheld device," Takahashi reports. "That would mean
consumers would be able to buy a machine that runs video games so
realistically that players will feel like they are inside the animated world
of, say, 'Shrek 2.'"

"'This is a shot across the bow for Intel,' said Richard Doherty, an
analyst at the Envisioneering Group, a consulting firm in Seaford, N.Y.
'Intel still uses an architecture that came from a calculator chip,' he
said. 'Cell comes from a clean sheet of paper, where the engineers had the
freedom to design from scratch for machines that manipulate images.' There
is no indication that Intel has a response to the Cell chip in the works. On
Monday, the Santa Clara chip maker, whose chips run 85 percent of the
world's PCs, said it will begin selling PC microprocessors with two
processors on a single chip by summer," Takahashi reports.

"No one expects the new Intel chips to have anywhere near the
processing power of the Cell, which will be made by IBM and Sony... Analysts
were intrigued that the Cell uses IBM technology that enables it to run any
operating system," Takahashi reports. "Kevin Krewell, editor of the
Microprocessor Report, said that raises the possibility that Apple Computer,
which already uses the PowerPC design upon which Cell is based, could use
the new chips in future Macintosh computers. Of course, winning over Apple
might be considered a small ambition for the IBM-Sony-Toshiba alliance.
'Cell really represents a supercomputer on a chip,' Kahle said."

 

[INGSOC]

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/4967/

"That would
mean consumers would be able to buy a machine that runs video games so
realistically that players will feel like they are inside the animated
world of, say, 'Shrek 2.'"

Gee, and people are disappointed because we don't have cool rotating
spacestations like in "2001".

 

[Folug the enraged]

Anyway the other day I decided to get a mirror and look at my vagina
which, I did. I opened my legs and looked inside my vagina and saw that
it was all pink and looked like lumpy tissue. I was traumatised.

 

[Toger the hempseed-dipper]

Just what the hell is your beef with Tony, you lame ass POS? FOAD.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! There you are, sitting in the sewer complaining about the
stench, totally unaware that you're adding to it. Go and **** yourself with
a sharp, hot-running chainsaw, you brain-dead ****tard.

 

[chrisv]

chrisv (e-mail address removed), wrote in message
(e-mail address removed):

It's just a stupid troll with a random name generator, which it uses
to avoid kill-files.

I advise deleting unread any post from someone with a name that
resembles, in any way, "Quolik the lowbrow".

This ****s you every time, eh.

 

[Daniel Johnson]

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/4967/

Intel has no answer to the 'Cell' processor; will Apple use it in
Macs?

Not too likely. The cell is not a general purpose CPU; Most programs
have a working set larger than the 256k memory the Cell supports, and
changing them to work in 256k increments would rather hard.

The Cell seems to be intended for use as a sort of co-processor, and
maybe they could be used to build a sort of GPU. But the benefits will
be in any event pretty limited.

 

[Trent]

NEXT BOX wrote:

[Snip]

Plonk !

What took you so long?

 

[Anton Ertl]

With the way that the PS2 processor and this new Cell processor work,
combined with the nature of the machine (ie to play games), bandwidth
is likely to be quite important while latency will be somewhat less
so. Remember that these processors are going to be doing a lot of
work traditionally associated with GPUs in a PC. Rambus' solutions,
both XDR now and RDRAM back when the PS2 was new, do offer VERY high
per-pin bandwidth and that's just the sort of thing that these
consoles need. The processors also have integrated memory controllers
which helps avoid some of the potential issues with Rambus in PCs. To
top it off, the memory chips are getting soldered right onto the
system board rather than hanging off multidrop sockets on the system
board.

Given all of that, Rambus would also make sense for graphics cards
(where all of the same things hold). Yet both Nvidia and ATI go with
DDR-SDRAM. Why? Is the savings by reducing pins less than the
premium for Rambus RAM? If so, wouldn't it also make sense for PS3 to
use DDR(2)-SDRAM?

In essensce, what's so different between the PS3 and graphics cards
that one goes with Rambus whereas the others go with DDR(2)?

Followups to comp.arch

- anton

 

[Maynard Handley]

I think the concept is to make everything part of a distributed
computing network by using the same processing unit. Sure your TV
might not need that much processing power to handle HDTV decryption
but you can link it up to your Cell PC to offload some of that wedding
video encoding you're doing... along with your radio, refrigerator and
PDA.

Just think of how much $$$ we're talking about here if everything runs
on Cell so I'm sure they will figure out a way to use Cell in TV,
toilet flush and trash bin too PpPP

People might want to remember Bluetooth piconets and all that sort of
magic --- rather different from the pretty pathetic mundane reality of
Bluetooth.
if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is --- the software to
make this sort of thing happen doesn't just appear out of nowhere, and
the fact that we haven't seen realistic prototypes in any domains ---
university projects, company demos etc --- doesn't give the idea much
credibility.

Maynard

 

[Fetch, Rover, Fetch]

Not too likely. The cell is not a general purpose CPU; Most programs
have a working set larger than the 256k memory the Cell supports, and
changing them to work in 256k increments would rather hard.

The Cell seems to be intended for use as a sort of co-processor, and
maybe they could be used to build a sort of GPU. But the benefits will
be in any event pretty limited.

not -

the cell is a G5 processor with *ADDTIONALLY* cpus on the same chip

also if you had bothered to read -
the cell's G5 carries a 32K level cache, and a 512K level 2 cache
while the 'satellite' cpus carry the 256K cache

excepting die size (giant at 221 mm) there is no practical reason that
these could not be put into Macs, or any other general use PC (including
in a dual [Mac tower] or quad [IBM Server] processor configuration).

 

[NEXT BOX]

Not too likely. The cell is not a general purpose CPU; Most programs
have a working set larger than the 256k memory the Cell supports, and
changing them to work in 256k increments would rather hard.

The Cell seems to be intended for use as a sort of co-processor, and
maybe they could be used to build a sort of GPU. But the benefits will
be in any event pretty limited.

not -

the cell is a G5 processor with *ADDTIONALLY* cpus on the same chip

also if you had bothered to read -
the cell's G5 carries a 32K level cache, and a 512K level 2 cache
while the 'satellite' cpus carry the 256K cache

excepting die size (giant at 221 mm) there is no practical reason that
these could not be put into Macs, or any other general use PC (including
in a dual [Mac tower] or quad [IBM Server] processor configuration).

Cell's master CPU is not a G5 processor. it's much more streamlined than a
G5.

 

[NEXT BOX]

close up of 1st generation Cell Processor
http://ascii24.com/news/i/tech/article/2005/02/10/images/images765505.jpg


close up of SPU - Synergistic Processing Unit - eight SPUs per Cell
Processor
http://ascii24.com/news/i/tech/article/2005/02/10/images/images765508.jpg

(Synergistic Processing Unit = Synergistic Processor Unit = Synergistic
Processor Element =
Synergistic Processing Element = Attached Processing Unit = Auxillary
Processing Unit)




SPU block diagram
http://ascii24.com/news/i/tech/article/2005/02/10/images/images765507.jpg


SPU reached 5.2 GHz in lab tests
http://ascii24.com/news/i/tech/article/2005/02/10/images/images765535.jpg


Cell power management features
http://ascii24.com/news/i/tech/article/2005/02/10/images/images765504.jpg

 

[Alex Colvin]

Intel has no answer to the 'Cell' processor; will Apple use it in

Macs?

what? Itanic doesn't count?

 

[Alex Colvin]

Intel has no answer to the 'Cell' processor; will Apple use it in

Cell's master CPU is not a G5 processor. it's much more streamlined than a
G5.

Actually, intel also has a streamlined processor with *16* additional
processors on the same chip. and a RDRAM interface. and honking I/O
bandwidth.

http://www.intel.com/design/network/products/npfamily/docs/ixp2800_docs.htm#Datasheets

 

[Alex Colvin]

Intel has no answer to the 'Cell' processor; will Apple use it in

http://www.intel.com/design/network/products/npfamily/docs/ixp2800_docs.htm#Datasheets

absolutely no FP, though