Cell Broadband Engine Architecture

Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM. Cell is shorthand for Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, commonly abbreviated CBEA in full or Cell BE in part.

Cell/B.E.’s breakthrough multi-core architecture and ultra high-speed communications capabilities deliver vastly improved, real time response, effectively delivering ‘supercomputer-like’ performance. Cell combines a general-purpose Power Architecture core (PPE) of modest performance with streamlined coprocessing elements (SPEs) which greatly accelerate several algorithms. The Cell is a microprocessor designed to bridge the gap between conventional desktop processors and more specialized high-performance processors, such as GPUs.

The Cell architecture emphasizes efficiency/watt, prioritizes bandwidth over latency, and favors peak computational throughput over simplicity of program code. For these reasons, Cell is widely regarded as a challenging environment for software development. The SPEs produce the largest performance when executing vector code. Programming the SPEs units is similar to develop VMX software for processors like PPC970. IBM provides a comprehensive Linux-based Cell development platform to assist developers in confronting these challenges. Software adoption remains a key issue in whether Cell ultimately delivers on its performance potential. Despite those challenges, research has indicated that Cell excels at several types of scientific computation. BSC-CNS develops a programming model called Cell SuperScalar that simplifies the porting of applications to Cell based platforms.

Cell based supercomputers

Due to the good ratios Flops/watt and Flops/$ of the Cell processor, there are some initiatives to build Cell based Peta scale supercomputers.

• The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has selected IBM to design and build the world's first supercomputer to harness the immense power of the Cell processor aiming to produce a machine capable of a sustained speed of one Petaflops. This supercomputer, called Roadrunner, will be installed at DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2008.
• BSC- CNS and IBM signed in December 2007 a R&D collaboration agreement to design and develop a new generation of Peta scale supercomputers. A homogeneous Cell based machine is considered as one alternative to build this supercomputer, called MareIncognito, in 2010.