IBM, Sony and SCEI power-on cell processor-based workstation prototype

IBM, Sony Corporation (Sony) and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCEI)
announced that they have powered-on the first Cell processor-based workstation.

The prototype workstation is the first computing application planned for the
highly-anticipated Cell processor.

The companies expect that a one rack Cell processor-based workstation will
reach a performance of 16 teraflops or trillions of floating point calculations
per second.

While an individual Cell processor is capable of parallel processing, a
cluster of Cell processors can also act as a huge parallel processing unit,
being able to handle massive data required for complex physics simulation and
control of digital characters in digital content creation, or can be divided
into smaller groups, each carrying out different tasks.

"Cell processor-based workstation will totally change the digital
content creation environment," said Masayuki Chatani, corporate executive
and CTO, Sony computer Entertainment Inc. "Its overwhelming power will be
demonstrated at every aspect in the development of all kinds of digital
entertainment content, from movies, broadcast programs to next generation
PlayStation games."

The Cell workstation is designed to deliver tremendous computational power,
helping digital entertainment content creators generate higher quality content
with richer and more dynamic scenes, much faster than current development
systems.

"Our collaboration with Sony is leading to a new era of innovation in
the semiconductor and computing industries," said Colin Parris, vice
president of product management, IBM Systems & Technology Group. "The
supercomputer-like processing and performance of the Cell processor-based
workstation is just the beginning of what we expect will be a wide-range of
powerful next-generation solutions resulting from our joint development
efforts."

Cell is a multicore chip comprising a 64-bit Power processor core and
multiple synergistic processor cores capable of massive floating point
processing, optimized for compute-intensive workloads and broadband rich media
applications, including computer entertainment, movies and other forms of
digital content.

Sony, SCEI and IBM aim to offer technology that will accelerate the paradigm
shift in digital entertainment.

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