IBM Announces Cell Processor Development to be Phased Out

[PS3 News]

Update: http://www.driverheaven.net/news.php?newsid=344 has now received clarification on this from IBM, to quote: "only one CPU development cycle is being 'halted' which is the successor to the current PowerXCell-8i cpu. IBM have said they are planning to work on other CPU's in the Cell Processor 'family'."

Today PlayStationUniversity.com (linked above) is reporting that IBM's Vice President David Turek http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/SC09-IBM-laesst-Cell-Prozessor-auslaufen-864497.html that Cell processor development will be phased out.

Apparently the planned 32 SPE Cell processor will not be made, and their current PowerXCell 8i will be the company's last entrance in the technology.

To quote: "The Cell Processor was originally the brain child of 'The Father of PlayStation' Ken Kutaragi. It was later co-developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba; making its way into the PlayStation 3, TV's and super computers.

So what does this mean for Sony and the PlayStation 4? Will this change with IBM pulling out of their own development?

Not necessarily. Sony can still hire IBM to create a Cell Processor for their next console, without IBM being involved in their own internal development outside of the PS4."


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[Boojak2]

Well, PS4 won't come out for a while...

[CyanCaze]

I'm not too worried about the cell processor at this point. I believe Sony will probably make an operating system that can run on it as they continue development.

[semitope]

This is weird to me. Cell looked like it was a pretty nice processor so why IBM is leaving I dont know. They say they might work on a hybrig GPU/CPU instead but isnt that what cell is in a way? Too bad its now sony and toshiba? alone in it

[ZBlacktt]

There's always Intel, lol. Whom is like 30min from my home here in OR. Sure this won't be an issue with these super companies. They will always find a way to keep on rolling.

[smarty94]

Does this end all PPC development or just the cell branch? (are there others?)

well there goes all hope of the road runner getting a CPU upgrade to pass the Jaguar as fastest supercomputer

[rickylyh]

give up cell, make PPC again?

[DoctorimiJ]

give up cell, make PPC again?

IBM never stopped PPC development. In fact, Power7 is heading out the gates now.

-Erich

[GZA1984]

I wouldn't mind if they'd use the 8 SPE cell processor again for the PS4. It wasn't/isn't exactly the bottleneck in the PS3. The remaining hardware and its complete design structure is. Especially the GPU.

It might actually still be fast enough for the next gen Playstation. A 32 SPE cell sounds too good to be true, but perhaps unnessecary to have that many.

[VFiva]

Well dudes...what do you say about that (From wiki)

The 45 nm Cell processor was introduced in concert with Sony's PlayStation 3 Slim in August 2009.

In November 2009, an IBM representative said that it has discontinued the development of a Cell processor with 32 SPUs[19] but they have not halted development of other future products in the Cell family.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_microprocessor