Re: IBM "Cell" processor

[esmith <esmith@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dave Leimbach wrote:
 > I think this "cell" technology is somewhat related to PCA project:
> http://www.morphware.org.  Being able to dynamically reconfigure the "cpu"
> for different applications.  I think this means you need to think of the 
> processing unit in a new light and that cell is directly related to this.
>
> Also the performance numbers you probably see from it are most likely
> highly dependent on locality of reference which means "streaming" applications.

Is it true that this form of interprocessor communication is, in some 
ways, similar to Java's RMI? We will have a long time to read the 
morphware papers because according to the URL below, workstations are at 
least one year, maybe 18 months, away.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/29/ps3_to_ship_2006

This chip will be in the IBM Power Architecture family so, if someone 
were determined to get a head-start on porting DF to the Cell, they 
could probably make significant inroads by simply porting to a current 
64 bit PowerPC platform. There has been a lot of Intel-groaning on the 
commit list in the last few months.