Cell processor sticking around at least another 5 years

Not that it should come as any big surprise, but Sony, Toshiba, and IBM announced that they're extending their pact developing the Cell processor for another 5 years, what's obviously practically an eternity in chip-making terms. Apparently the triumvirate's got some ambitious goals to meet -- like hitting the fabled 30 nanometer mark -- and none of them seem to want to go it alone at this point in the game (understandably), perhaps especially Sony, who is probably banking on the Cell to power its PlayStations for generations to come. Still, Sony, Toshiba: right hand, meet left. That is, you've got to find at least a little irony in these two giants up in here, so ready to tear one anothers' throats out on one front (next gen optical -- i.e. HD DVD vs. Blu-ray -- and the hi def living room), yet are being so kissy kissy nice n' gentle on the other.

[foobar @ Jan 12th 2006 9:45AM]

This is how Sony made such trendemous profits on the PS2.

Scale down the chip and bring down the production costs to a fraktion of the retail value.

[Cris @ Jan 12th 2006 10:16AM]

That's too long for us..5 YEARS!!

[Chris @ Jan 12th 2006 10:24AM]

Sony and Toshiba might be ready to gouge eachothers eyes out but they're both smart enough to know they can't afford to develop this kind of tech on their own. Besides, something has to drive all that data, it doesn't matter what type of disk it comes off of.



If I wanted to take over the chip world, I too would ally myself with the most powerful players.

[EatingPie @ Jan 12th 2006 10:35AM]

What is Toshiba's role here?



I had no idea they were part of the Cell, and I'm very interested to understand why. Their PCs run on the x86 architecture, so that completely rules out that avenue. An embedded system? But this chip has to be damn pricey for something like an HD-DVD Set-Top-Box... doesn't it?



-Pie

[Jason @ Jan 12th 2006 10:35AM]

What are the specs on the cell processor? I havent heard very much. I was also wondering if anyone knew how efficent they are with power and thus the heat they put off?



Thanks,



Jason

[Dan @ Jan 12th 2006 11:04AM]

And also how Microsoft took such tremendous losses on the original Xbox. It certainly is odd seeing Microsoft on the "brute force" side of things - As early as five years ago one would of expected a bit more ingenuity from MS.

[TZK @ Jan 12th 2006 11:18AM]

Google it "CELL CPU" if you want to learn about it.



Jeez.

[Alexei K. @ Jan 12th 2006 1:15PM]

4: All the companies are banking on embeding the chip into all of their home electrnci eventualy, since it is designed to communicate with itself(and other chips that have the ability) via a 3.9gb/s dedicated BUS architecture. So the more things they put it in..the better they can 'intergrate' the enviorment having all cell based devices share a common 'language' of sorts..that was the original business plan as I remember hearing it last year :-)



5: The cell proccessor is a multi-core in-order unit chip. That contains one multi-purpose control unit (PPU) and 8 in-order spetializable sub-cores (SPUs) all running at 3.2~3.4ghz(on the current gen of it anyways, they plan to raise this later on as technology improves). With a high on dye dedicated bus and a 3.9gb/s dedicated chip com bus, which assists in the communication structure. The chips can be easily 'beowulfed' of sorts together via this bus since they all communicate commonly, so one can pass programs of to another. The PPUs (which usualy toss the programs/datasets to SPUs for proccessing) link up and share tasks..It's really quite an ingenious architecture (imho). On the ps2 for example, the cell and RSX use the bandwidth(though they don't share a PPU to PPU communication structure) they do share other things ;-)..



Hope this helps!

[Random @ Jan 12th 2006 1:26PM]

answer to 4 and 5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_%28microprocessor%29



Also, Toshiba's current plans for the Cell is to make it the main chip for all their HDTVs (starting in 2006).

[Quink @ Jan 13th 2006 3:37AM]

What's that in the background? And do I really want to know?

[Kamalot @ Jan 13th 2006 10:06AM]

"Toshiba's current plans for the Cell is to make it the main chip for all their HDTVs (starting in 2006)."

If the cell is cheap enough to put into a TV, then why are people complaining about the expense of the PS3?



Mark my words, the expected high price of the PS3 will evaporate before the console launches and anyone duped into thinking it is really $700 of technology will be happy to find that the real price is only $399.



Suckers.

[CEO @ Jan 14th 2006 7:10AM]

There are other licensees of the Cell technology as well, so the IBM/Toshiba/Sony group is clearly betting on making money from sublicensing. Still unproven, but interesting all the same.