CELL analysis

Ars Technica will be there.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050201-4572.html

 

So, according to this Hannibal guy, Cell is a descendant of POWER6? Or does he mean Cell is a new ancestor on its own?

 

I read it as more of a reference to Power5, perhaps...(?)

And good news that Ars will be there, they at least will be able to digest everything properly and hopefully report on it in an accurate and timely manner.

Will be nice if someone else is there too.

 

Intresting the number of times Hannibal used IBM, and not Sony/Toshiba.


I assume the "basic core" is in regards to a new core design. Probably Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony will have this core in their next-generation hardware.

 

I assume he believes most of the architecture's design to be IBM's work (even if there were targets set by Sony). And because perhaps the presenters at ISSCC are mostly from IBM? (On that part I don't know for sure.) If he were bringing up lithography as well, he'd probably talk about STI together.

It does seem a bit odd, though.

 

I asked Gamespot's Hardware editor if they'll be covering Cell @ ISSCC and he said "We plan on sending a few people." - so I guess we'll have a couple of places to go, at least, for news of the conference!

 

I dont believe that he is talking about Power 5/6 , but possible a link between Cell and Blue Gene L 's 440 series processor.

But I think it is rather the case of Cell being linked with the Power 5 Family , not the 440. Id love to be wrong on this. =)

 

Well, it's IBM who is doing the presentation and has people on hand to talk to, it's IBM who by all appearances has been driving the design, it's IBM that supplies the CPUs for all next generation consoles, Big Iron computers, servers, business computing solutions, Macs, various embedded uses,....
Sony, for all its home entertainment clout, isn't a major mover and shaker in the world of computing. IBM is.

Hannibal is competent. I think he can be trusted to extract useful information for those interested in computer architecture. But his reporting isn't likely to be geared towards the perpetual PS3/XBox2 bickering here.