Future tech and Cell PE

[Leathel]

I was reading up on HP's QSR (Quantum science research) Group, about their new findings on processing, sounds pretty awesome and about time that something gave way to transistors, I think that they are getting close to a consumer level usage, I hope that this brings total new wave of techies to the table that are allot faster than a super computer and is portable =) so I can play my PSP3 (PSP that's right) with some sort or 3D goggles

here's the report - Source - Theregister.com

 

A breakthrough in molecular computing could be the beginning of the end for the transistor, according to scientists at HP.

 

Researchers have successfully demonstrated a "crossbar latch", a technology that behaves just like a transistor, but is much smaller, and simpler to make. HP's quantum science research (QSR) group says the new technology paves the way for machines that are thousands of times more powerful than anything available today.

 

The device, based on just three wires, can perform the NOT, AND and OR operations. It can also restore the logic level in a circuit to its ideal voltage value, according to the research paper, published in today's Journal of Applied Physics.

 

The "crossbar latch" has a significant advantage over traditional silicon transistors, the QSR team explains. Standard semiconductor circuits need three-terminal transistors to perform the NOT operation and restore signals. But the performance of silicon components is limited by their size, and silicon transistors of just a few nanometres across are not expected to be operable.

 

The latch is composed of a single wire that behaves as a signal line, crossed by two control lines. These control lines have an electronically switchable, molecular scale junction, where they intersect the signal line. It is controlled by applying a sequence of voltage impulses to the control lines and using oppositely polarised switches.

 

"Transistors will continue to be used for years to come with conventional silicon circuits," said Phil Kuekes, senior computer architect, QSR, and one of the paper's authors. "But this could someday replace transistors in computers, just as transistors replaced vacuum tubes and vacuum tubes replaced electromagnetic relays before them."

 

PS3 Cell proceessinng unit = T3 (as in terminator 3)

To tell the truth I'm a bit exited to see the Cell go into the market and see how it fairs out, and the posibilities. Unlike the PC/PCBOX is a revolutionary console (Like Ps2).

But I'm also a bit optimistic about a network of cell units that can talk to each other and use each other's resource and at some level maybe reach an ulmost untapable processing power, I mean with the right - wrong software this can turn out to be a total desaster, but on the otherhand - if it all works out nice and neat like it's suppose to, Aside from pushing what I just posted Up there far back. networking would be a fricking trip, maybe even provide a wireless LAN?

 

here's more - Source - Theregister.com

No chip in years has caused as much excitement as the Cell processor developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba. It promises to be the most important microprocessor of the decade, with potentially enormous repercussions for how the industry computes, and how the rest of us use digital media. It will power the PlayStation 3 and technical and commercial computing.

 

Technical details of Cell will be disclosed at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco next week, and in anticipation we'll look first at how the Cell works and then tomorrow at what it means to the industry and consumers.

 

Excitement about Cell has already led to some wild and poorly informed speculation, as Ars Technica's Jon Stokes rued last week. But earlier in the month, Microprocessor Report's Tom Halfhill published an investigation into a detailed patent filed in 2001, and published by the USPTO in October, and he was kind enough to discuss it with us. We'll refer to it as the '734 patent.

 

Inside Cell

The ambitious scale of the project is one of the most remarkable aspects of Cell.

 

"It isn't just a single microprocessor or even a family of processors," writes Tom. "It's a top-to-bottom architecture for a broad range of computing systems, from servers and workstations at the high-end to game consoles, PDAs, digital TVs, and other consumer electronics at the low end".

 

How does it look?

 

The 'cell' which gives the chip its name doesn't refer to the hardware, but to a virtual clump of software which roams the system looking for computing resources. The patent refers to a "cell object" - program and data - and it can even roam across LANs or WANs, to find another Cell-based device.

 

A Cell chip consists of one or more independent execution units, and a program can commandeer as many of these as resources allow to create a temporary execution pipeline, each with its own register file and banks of RAM. These pipelines are dynamically configurable and can lock out other processes from grabbing their hardware resources. "The Cell architecture introduces a whole new meaning to the term 'self-modifying code'," notes Tom drily.

 

The '734 patent calls the basic hardware unit a PE, or 'processor element'. Rather confusingly, a PE consists of a 'processor unit' or PU, and an array of attached, er, processing units or APUs. The patent, Tom notes, says that the "preferred" PE configuration is eight APUs. The "preferred embodiment" of an APU is 128kb of SRAM, 128 x 128-bit registers, four integer units and four floating point units. Some of these may be specialized for tasks such as shading.

 

Inside each software cell are 'apulets'. These aren't necessarily self-contained programs, stress MPR, but seem more like serialized objects. Amongst the many mysteries yet to be revealed about software cells is how the chip schedules such tasks, not just amongst onboard PEs but also amongst other Cells.

 

"Imagine an apulet running on your PDA that depends on a result coming from another apulet running on a computer in Norway," writes Tom. The Cell processor must make its best guess, based on network latencies, how to distribute the workload. The designers have set themselves an awesome challenge.

 

Halfhill also notes that the Cell's architecture is more flexible than Java's sandboxes, because a software cell can encapsulate several processes, or part of a single process. There's no evidence, he points out, that Cell implements JVMs in hardware: it's much more subtle than that. For security purposes, Cell's hardware restrictions may prove to be the most controversial aspect of the chip.

 

Some interesting design decisions have been made in creating the memory architecture -

 

"It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Cell processors will have an extraordinarily secure but cumbersome memory model. For each main-memory access, the processor would have to consult four lookup tables... Three of those tables are in DRAM, which implies slow off-chip memory references; the other table is in the DMA controller’s SRAM. In some cases, the delays caused by the table lookups might eat more clock cycles than reading or writing the actual data. The patent hints that some keys might unlock multiple memory locations or sandboxes, perhaps granting blanket permission for a rapid series of accesses, within certain bounds."

 

Global security

The Cell architecture isn't just a blueprint for a new kind of chip, but for a massively distributed global computing network. Each Cell is given a GUID, a global identifier. Your PlayStation may be hosting processes that began life on a Cell on another side of the world. Remember that the architecture enables a strict, lock-down machine to be built, with access to memory tightly controlled. Since DRM is predicated on controlling uniquely-identified media to run, or not run, on a specifically-authorized piece of hardware, this allows system designers much more scope in building systems which can both restrict and track the content they play.

 

There may be more benign uses: Cell clearly makes a very sophisticated building block for distributed grid computing too. "A hypothetical Cell processor with eight of these APUs could achieve 32 BOPS and 32 gigaFLOPS at only 250MHz," writes Tom. Or a teraflop at 1Ghz. This is an order of magnitude higher than today's workstations in what could be a low cost, low power machine. If Cell fulfills its promise, Intel is facing its greatest challenge since the turn of the 1990s, when RISC processors seemed to be extending an unbeatable performance lead, and when Microsoft was porting Windows NT to every RISC platform it could: MIPS, Alpha and PowerPC. But the remarkable P6 core (which first appeared in the Pentium II) saw the performance gap narrow, and the alliances arrayed against Intel stumbled and fragmented.

 

kk - gonna go take a nap

[Aoshi]

Yeah, yeah i know the hardware is good but has anyone seen anything from this console, would the graphics look like ff advent children or would it look like xbox 1 1/2.

[NeoMaster]

Wasn't this already posted by Kdash or something? Or Agozer...I don't know.

[Agozer]

It was, but definitely not by me.

[Gryph]

If you read that post then you'd know the first part of it has not been posted here since I read it first yesterday at Slashdot. It's some interesting stuff, it's nice to see Quantum computer mechanics actually come close to being a commerical product. It may be a while but it's always good.

 

And the CELL will be very interesting too, can't wait to see how it affects the entire industry (not just PS3).

[Wizard]

Wasn't me...at least I think it wasn't me.

[Sultan]

Ya I posted the speculation on the Cell processor awhile back. That post had a link to some seriously in-depth speculation on the processor's features and future uses. Check it out if you want more info on it.

 

The new logic gate thing (first part of this post) sounds very interesting. Basically the scaling down of transistors is the main problem for the future of computing. This sounds like it would allow processors to get past the current projected size barrier. But we're still a number of years from that barrier.

 

The Cell is a lot more immediate of a computer revolution. However, I don't see it completely revolutionizing computer if its just in the PS3. We'll have to see other devices incorporating it quickly if its going to live up to the hype of competing with PCs for dominance. Unfortunately, Sony is kind of known for not sharing. I don't know how the Sony-IBM partnership works, but if Sony has control of the Cell chip at all then it'll only ever be in the PS3.

[Wizard]

The next thing you'll know is Sony will make Sony brand computers with a Sony OS that'll suck more then Windows ME.

[Gryph]

The next thing you'll know is Sony will make Sony brand computers with a Sony OS that'll suck more then Windows ME.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't speak such horrible things...it scares me.

[Wizard]

For those who still don't know. This is just a big plan so SONY CAN CONTROL THE WORLD WITH IT'S MEMORY STICKS.

[Agozer]

This internet dude I know claimed that his boyfriend had coded a patch that actually made WinME so that it didn't suck scrotum.