New articles about IBM's plans for POWER6 and Cell

RC Cola · Feb 8, 2006

I mostly just wanted to post the Cell-IBM stuff, but since IBM has also recently revealed details about the POWER6 CPU, I'll go ahead and post that stuff too. Note that I don't really follow that news too much, so I don't really have much insight regarding the POWER6. Anyway...
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=670

Yesterday at ISSCC, IBM hinted a little bit at its next generation POWER6 CPU. The processor is the first from IBM to feature Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technology used by AMD since 2004. IBM representatives also claimed the new chip will use a 65nm process running at an astounding 5GHz.

IBM previously revealed that the CPU would feature an 8-way associative 64KB L1 data cache. POWER5 also utilizes an associative L1 data cache. Intel processor architectures opt for direct cache mapping on the L1 cache instead. POWER6 is also unique in the fact that it will use a pipelined cache. This new design allows for two simultaneous reads from the cache per clock cycle or a single write.

IBM has previously revealed that POWER6 will be a 4-issue CPU, meaning four instructions can actually be sent own the CPU pipeline at once. IBM officials did not comment on simultaneous multi-threading (SMT), but POWER5 utilizes two logical threads per core in its current design. There does not seem to be any indication this will change for POWER6.

The POWER6 processor has been under development at IBM (at least publicly) since 2002 as part of the "eCLipz" processor family. The goal of the project has always been to unify all of IBM's RISC architectures under a single chip, thus eliminating the need for a separate architecture on the "i," "p," and "z" series servers.

Expect to see the POWER6 chip in servers in 12-18 months.
Click to expand...

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c41f2d94-973c-11da-82b7-0000779e2340.html

IBM will unveil a new processor on Tuesday that will be twice as fast as those of competitors such as Sun, Intel and AMD when it appears in 2007, according to the group.

IBM’s Power6 chip is a radical departure from the trend among microprocessor makers to produce more energy-efficient chips after their race to increase speeds created overheating problems.

IBM said it had broken through energy and heat barriers with the Power6 to achieve speeds of between 4 and 5 gigahertz – more than double the performance of the next generation of Intel’s Itanium chip, planned at less than 2GHz.

The processor will give IBM an edge in the high-end server market, operating faster in the same “power envelope” as its rivals.

Bernie Myerson, chief technology officer of IBM’s Systems and Technology group, said existing chip technology reached its physical limits four years ago in terms of doubling the number of transistors on a chip while reducing the amount of power needed to run them.

But techniques such as stretching and squeezing the silicon used, improving synchronisation at high speeds and taking a holistic approach to improving the chip architecture had enabled a breakthrough.

“There’s nobody looking at anything like this. We have a more highly integrated chip that is multi-core and we are increasing the frequency – we are turning up both knobs at once when the industry is going the other way and turning [the frequency] knob down,” Mr Myerson said.

Richard Doherty, analyst with Envisioneering, a consultancy, said IBM achieved frequencies of 6GHz in their labs.

“It’s our belief that this is going to be the fastest computing chip and family in the world for some time.

“A lot of people will be surprised by this. It will cause a lot of companies to go back to the drawing board,” he said.

IBM will make its disclosures about the Power6 at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.

It unveiled its revolutionary Cell processor at the same conference a year ago, which will feature in Sony’s PlayStation3 games console.
Click to expand...

And regarding Cell...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060208/ap_on_hi_te/ibm_cell_chip

A highly touted microprocessor designed to provide hyper-realistic imagery in video games is making its first appearance in a computing system made by the chip's leading designer, International Business Machines Corp.

IBM announced Wednesday that it would incorporate the "Cell" chip into a new line of servers for defense, medical imagery, entertainment and other applications that require sterling graphics and intensive computing.

Cell is slated to run Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news).'s upcoming PlayStation 3 video game system and high-definition TVs from Sony and Toshiba Corp.

Sony and Toshiba co-designed Cell with IBM; last month the three companies renewed the partnership for another five years.

While Cell's performance is highly regarded, there are skeptics who say it remains to be seen whether the chip will see enough broader uses to truly count as revolutionary. Before Wednesday's announcement, Cell's main assignment outside of Sony and Toshiba had been specialized medical and defense computers made by Mercury Computing Systems Inc.

Now IBM will use Cell in a line of "blade" servers, so named because they are relatively thin chunks of circuitry designed to perform specialized computing tasks. Because they are smaller than traditional servers, IBM envisions Cell-based blades seeing action in a wide range of settings, possibly including military vehicles.

"It's not going to be a general purpose computer," said Tim Dougherty, IBM's director of blade center strategy. "But for certain things, it is incredible, and it will make orders of magnitude difference."

Cell's fate will be closely watched because Big Blue is anxious to find ways to spur revenue growth.

Cell is touted as a game-changing "supercomputer on a chip" because of its unusual design, which includes an IBM Power processor at its core, helped by eight additional processors working together.

But for the chip to gain wide acceptance, IBM needs to spur outside programmers to write software that takes advantage of Cell's prowess. That could prove a tougher task than usual because Cell is architected so differently from other chips.

IBM hopes this summer's release of the Cell-based servers helps kickstart work by third-party programmers. Eventually IBM is likely to deploy Cell in other kinds of hardware, from supercomputers to data storage systems.

In turn, that could inspire other customers to follow Mercury's lead and try to tweak Cell for their own specialized purposes.

For example, defense contractor Raytheon Co. is exploring whether it can use Cell to dramatically improve the performance of sensor networks. Raytheon's chief technology officer, Peter Pao, called Cell "a very exciting technology" with "a lot of promise," but said Raytheon is still evaluating how to rewrite software and redesign systems to work with Cell.

"The most important thing is for this chip to have a large market with a large user base, because with that, IBM will have the financial incentive to continue to improve this product," Pao said. "We need that base."

One knock against Cell could be that it produces a relatively high amount of heat, which could keep it out of mobile devices.

Blade servers can be particularly sensitive to heat because they pack so much circuitry into a small space. However, Dougherty said the new servers are designed in such a way to get around the heat problem.

Dave Turek, IBM's vice president of "deep computing," noted that while Cell's current setup stems from the intense demands of video game systems, the chip's general architecture is designed to be modified for different industries' applications. In other words, Turek said, future iterations easily can be made cooler.
Click to expand...

Another article about Cell:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060208_094930.htm

The powerful processor inside Sony's PlayStation 3 has other, less-publicized uses -- among them, telecom, defense, and medicine

The excitement over Sony's (SNE) PlayStation 3 and its superstrength Cell chip is building to a fever pitch. The next-gen console, due out this spring, will draw its power from Cell, essentially a supercomputer on a chip, expected to deliver eye-popping 3-D graphics and lightning-quick response times for speed-junkie gamers (see BW Online, 1/23/06, "A Monster Year for Game Consoles").

Amid the ballyhoo, little attention has been paid to Cell's other selling point: its potential for transforming data-crunching in industries hungry for computing power -- and on the military battlefields of the future.

AEROSPACE APPS. The wraps are starting to come off. On Feb. 8, IBM (IBM) introduced the first computer to harness Cell as part of a major upgrade of its so-called blade servers, used in everything from midsize businesses to huge corporate data centers. The Cell blade fits into IBM's BladeCenter chassis -- a box into which you can slide up to seven Cell blades. IBM proclaimed it the dawn of the "visualization computing era."

Says Tim Dougherty, director of BladeCenter strategy: "We think this has the potential to revolutionize the way people address certain marketplaces." The targets: digital media, medical imaging, oil and gas exploration, aerospace, defense, and telecommunications.

No matter how much power the Cell may possess, it won't be an overnight revolution. To begin with, IBM's Cell blades won't pop off an assembly line like so many Dell (DELL) desktop PCs. Initially, IBM will assemble them for particular customers in connection with consulting engagements -- such as with Mercury Computing Systems (MRCY) -- to overhaul products for military and medical uses. "These will be special-purpose computers, not general-purpose ones like the PC," says Jim Kahle, IBM fellow and director of the joint Cell Design Center in Austin, Tex.

COST CUTTER? Chip industry leader Intel (INTC) makes light of Cell. Intel concentrates on products for PCs and servers and doesn't have a chip that can match Cell's processing capabilities -- but it says that doesn't matter. "Cell is targeted at games and embedded applications, and it's not in the mainstream server, mobile, and PC sectors," where Intel dominates, says Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy.

Yet analysts believe that over time, Cell could play a significant role in business and defense by bringing prices down and enabling new feats of high-speed processing. The chips will appear not just in blades but also in engineering workstations and in specialized gear like radar and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems. "These processors will offer levels of performance in a single machine that will blow people away," says analyst Charles King of tech consultancy Pund-IT. "It's not a big market initially, but eventually, it could be a very big market."

The Cell chip, jointly developed by Sony, IBM, and Toshiba, is based on IBM's Power microprocessor architecture. Power chips run a wide array of electronics -- supercomputers, high-end corporate computers, Cisco (CSCO) routers, cell phones, and more. Cell is also manufactured by IBM. While Big Blue's microelectronics revenue represents just a sliver of overall sales, IBM considers chips and chipmaking technologies a key innovation differentiator in an industry where many products are increasingly commoditized (see BW Online, 2/7/06, "For IBM, Speed Rules").

MRI POTENTIAL. What's so special about Cell? The chip was designed from the ground up for the multimedia, networked world. The initial Cell chips have nine "cores," each programmable to handle different functions -- for example, audio, video, and graphic rendering. The technology also has "parallelism" that allows more things to happen at the same time. All of this makes it possible to accelerate processing speeds by a factor of 15 or more.

For instance, when used in an MRI machine, the images would look like a high-definition video rather than a choppy series of low-resolution pictures. IBM and its partners plan to cooperate on designs for the next generation of Cell processors and other chips (see BW Online, 1/12/06, "Toward the Chips of Tomorrow").

Cell could have a major impact on the defense and aerospace industries. Raytheon (RTN) is working with IBM to develop a two-chip package for use in everything from radar and sonar to night-vision goggles. In addition to powering the individual systems and devices, Cell will, ideally, help integrate information from many sensors and sources, so individual soldiers and commanders can have both detailed and holistic views of the action around them. Raytheon plans on using Cell in its entire family of sensor-based products.

STARTUP HELPER. "This will be a key enabler for many things that will happen in network-centric warfare," Raytheon Chief Technology Officer Peter S. Pao, says of the Pentagon's plan to use advanced digital-imaging and networking to transform the battlefield of the future.

Other companies are developing uses for Cell that cut across industries. One of them, Mercury Computer Systems, has already developed three Cell-based technology modules designed to be included in systems for defense, medical, oil and gas exploration, and digital entertainment. "We have high hopes that this could become a big part of our business," says Joel Radford, Mercury's vice-president for strategic marketing and alliances.

Tech startups may also have a place for Cell. In December, IBM invited a handful of top venture capitalists to a Cell briefing in Silicon Valley. Carl Everett of Accel Partners, who attended the event, says he sees potential for Cell not just in consumer devices but also in corporate data centers. For instance, one company he has invested in, Transitive, provides emulation software that allows programs originally designed to run on one type of microprocessor to run on another type -- without the need to make any changes. Everett believes all sorts of such "virtualization" technologies exist that will run well on Cell.

Will buzz around the nongaming uses forCell rival the entertainment-related hype? Probably not. But, behind the scenes, this technology could bestow crucial help in saving lives, finding new energy sources, and winning wars.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I may have gone a little overboard with the number of articles.

Regarding the IBM-Cell articles, I realize that IBM adopting Cell seems like a no-brainer, although it should be noted that there was some speculation as to whether or not IBM would adopt the tech for their own purposes; basically, they may have helped designed Cell, but they may have had no desire to actually use it themselves. Of course, that doesn't seem to be the case according to these articles. I also pointed out some of the early non-STI companies that are using or may be using Cell in the near-future (Mercury and Raytheon). So yeah, Cell has far surpassed the Emotion Engine (its predecessor so to speak) when it comes to uses outside of a gaming console.

As for the POWER6, again, I'll leave that up to you guys to discuss if you'd like. It would be interesting to see some sort of Cell processor based on the POWER6 (maybe a modified POWER6 core?). Other than that though, I don't have much to offer there.

FWIW, I believe IBM is supposed to show off a new Cell demo today. I might post about that later if any articles are written about it.

Rocket G · Feb 8, 2006

Two key things you didn't highlight:

"But for the chip to gain wide acceptance, IBM needs to spur outside programmers to write software that takes advantage of Cell's prowess. That could prove a tougher task than usual because Cell is architected so differently from other chips."

-This would make sense as the word is that these are expensive & complex to program for. I suspect that very, very few gaming companies will have the funding & the expertise needed to deliver the "eye-popping" graphics that are being hyped. Raw power isn't jack if you can't take adavantage of it. Same as the 360, I think it will be a while before we see any true next-gen power games for the PS3.

Also:

"One knock against Cell could be that it produces a relatively high amount of heat, which could keep it out of mobile devices."

This should be a big STFU to the fanboys complaining about the 360's heat shedding & massive external power supply. The PS3 will have the same issues.

RC Cola · Feb 8, 2006

This actually wasn't intended to be a gaming related thread (or even something non-IBM related for that matter except for a few points), but I guess I'll go ahead and address those points.

Rocket G said:

"But for the chip to gain wide acceptance, IBM needs to spur outside programmers to write software that takes advantage of Cell's prowess. That could prove a tougher task than usual because Cell is architected so differently from other chips."

-This would make sense as the word is that these are expensive & complex to program for. I suspect that very, very few gaming companies will have the funding & the expertise needed to deliver the "eye-popping" graphics that are being hyped. Raw power isn't jack if you can't take adavantage of it. Same as the 360, I think it will be a while before we see any true next-gen power games for the PS3.
Click to expand...

Actually, quite a few developers might have the "expertise" of programming for Cell if they developed a PS2 game, and it seems like even a developer like Bandai can something "next-gen" looking in a short time period. Programming for multiple cores/threads is something some developers have been doing for a while now; there's no doubting that Cell is definitely going to take some time and money in order to get the most out of it, but I bet game developers (specifically those that worked on the PS2) may be able to get the most out of the chip. From what I've read, it seems like Cell is in some ways easier and in some ways more complex than the EE. Considering what developers were able to get out of the EE (without any help from Sony really until late in the game), I think it will be interesting to see what they'll be able to get out of Cell. Of course, the same also applies to Xenon.

For non-game software developers, I'm not sure if they would be as up to the task as game programmers would be, although to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what they're used to coding for. I'm sure Cell will be quite a challenge compared to any work they've done on a AMD, Intel, or POWER CPU (uh...non-Cell POWER CPU anyway), but I wonder how they write software for these large supercomputers. I believe a few CPUs out there (Niagra?) are like Cell in some regards, so some programmers used to supercomputers and/or other powerful devices might be used to parallelism to a degree. I don't know. FWIW, it did seem like Mercury got some Cell demos up and running pretty quickly and already it was a substantial improvement over what they had been using. If all these companies continue to support Cell, I imagine others will basically have to learn how to program for Cell (or something like it), whether they planned on doing so or not.

Just saw this:
http://news.com.com/IBM+refurbishing+blades+with+Cell,+PowerPC/2100-1010_3-6036943.html

Although IBM said it will sell the Cell blade under special arrangement, meaning there's no set price, it's not for the faint of heart right now. It requires a special version of Linux--Red Hat's Fedora, supplemented by IBM patches downloadable from a University of Barcelona Web site--and there aren't any applications available yet, said Ted Maeurer, senior manager of Cell for IBM.

"We're very early in the life of this technology. Today, we are just starting the collaboration with partners. One of the prerequisites to progress is having hardware out there," Maeurer said. However, he added, more than 260 potential partners have requested briefings under nondisclosure agreements.
Click to expand...

More people to try and "tame" Cell?

Rocket G said:

"One knock against Cell could be that it produces a relatively high amount of heat, which could keep it out of mobile devices."

This should be a big STFU to the fanboys complaining about the 360's heat shedding & massive external power supply. The PS3 will have the same issues.
Click to expand...

I'm a little confused by that comment from the article. I was under the impression that Cell is pretty good (IIRC) when it comes to performance/watt (or whatever you want to call it). Right after that quote, the article says:

Blade servers can be particularly sensitive to heat because they pack so much circuitry into a small space. However, Dougherty said the new servers are designed in such a way to get around the heat problem.

Dave Turek, IBM's vice president of "deep computing," noted that while Cell's current setup stems from the intense demands of video game systems, the chip's general architecture is designed to be modified for different industries' applications. In other words, Turek said, future iterations easily can be made cooler.
Click to expand...

It almost sounds like they're talking about either the Cell designed for the servers (dual-Cell IIRC) or the regular Cell CPU that they have designed (the "9 core" one at 3+GHz). If they're referring directly to those designs for Cell, then of course it won't be able to make it into mobile devices. But then again, there's no need for those designs for a mobile device; a lower clock combined with fewer SPEs should cut down on power and heat issues quite a bit, and the CPU would still be very powerful for a mobile device. I'm assuming that's what Turek meant by "future iterations."

FWIW, the numbers out there for Cell and Xenon suggest that Cell@4GHz and with 8 SPEs would require only about half the power that Xenon does (like 40-45W to 80-85W). I don't think those are exactly accurate (slight variations in methods used to count power usage), but it is the only numbers out there right now. Since the Cell in the PS3 won't need as much power as that particular Cell design though (lower clock, 1 less SPE), there still might be at least a slight advantage for Cell in that regard. It might make sense too since I believe the hottest part of Cell is the PPE, which Xenon has three of basically; I think the SPEs are pretty good when it comes to power consumption and avoiding heat issues.

Of course, I'm not saying the PS3 will avoid issues that the 360 underwent. Even if the Cell/Xenon numbers were accurate, the PS3 as a whole might be more similar to the 360 system as a whole when it comes to heat and power issues. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

edit: Regarding the power-performance ratio:
http://research.scea.com/research/html/CellGDC05/05.html

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/615/615535p1.html

Next up we checked out a set of blade servers, each set up with two Cell processors. They weren't final design quite yet, but when finished they'll sport a double-width size while still being able to keep the processors quite cool. In fact, as the blades were open we could test the heat coming off of them and it felt reasonably cool, cooler than many of our high-end PCs back at the IGN offices. This bodes well for heat-issues or more correctly the lack thereof.
Click to expand...

I could probably find more, but that's some basic info there.

Forums

New articles about IBM's plans for POWER6 and Cell

RC Cola Member

Rocket G Member

RC Cola Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!