Researchers from IBM Corp., Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and Toshiba Corp. unveiled the long-awaited Cell microprocessor Monday, revealing a multicore, multithreaded gaming engine described as "a supercomputer on a chip..."Source: MacCentralThe prototype chip discussed Monday is comprised of one 64-bit PowerPC processor core and eight separate processing cores that the companies call "synergistic processing elements," or SPEs. The cores can support multiple operating systems and programming models through the use of virtualization technologies, said Jim Kahle, director of technology at the Design Center for Cell Technology, and an IBM fellow.
Not only is this great Playstation 3 news, this is great news for IBM. The next X Box, Playstation, and probably Nintendo console will all be using IBM CPU's and ATI GPU's. Thats really great news for IBM and ATI.
It is great for IBM because it means there are more uses for the PowerPC processor then just Macs. Who would have thought the next X Box, from Microsoft, was based on the Apple G5 processor. Its not exactly a G5, of course, but all these next generation gaming consoles are using PowerPC derived chips.
