IBM + SONY + TOSHIBA = ?? Cell

Well a decade ago the processor market was a virtual monopoly of the Intel corporation, But AMD’s persistance has cut intel’s margins sharply. And now its widely accepted that AMD’s dual cores are way ahead of Intel’s.

But away from all these IBM with SONY and Toshiba, is waiting for a debut in the big processor league. If whatever is promised is really achieved we could have a super computer inside an IBM branded processor (‘Cell’). Running with eight cores, the prototype chip is 221 mm2, integrates 234 million transistors, and is fabricated with 90 nm SOI technology. It promises to clock at 4GHZ. Clock speed is not big deal anymore..after AMD’s slower clocking processors consistantly beat their higher clocking Intel counterparts.So we cant compare Intel’s 4GHZ processor with the IBM’s “Cell” which could provide 10 times the processing power of any modern processors.

And not just the processor, but a new memory system XDR which supports datarates upto 8GHZ, and FlexIO processor buses (formerly Redwood) are capable of running up to 6.4 GHz data rates providing a claimed bandwidth that is more than four times faster than best-of-class processor buses available today.

The ‘Cell’ is expected to debut in Sony’s playstation, followed by TV’s and then to mainstream PC market..So lets get ready for bigger things!!