Toshiba Demos Cell Processor

April 25, 2005 By Ian Bell

The new cell processor co-developed by Toshiba and Sony can simultaneously decode 48 SDTV format MPEG-2 streams.

“In the film, 48 MPEG-2 streams stored on a HDD were read, decoded and projected to a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells, each of which showed a different video fitted to the cell size. The company expects the technology to be used to display moving thumbnails in a video list. Of the eight synergistic processor elements (SPE) featured by the Cell, six are used for decoding 48 MPEG-2 streams and one is used for scaling the screen. The remaining SPE can be used for a completely different processing. ”

A version of this cell processor, if not an identical copy, is expected to be used in the new Playstation 3 gaming console which should be announced at this years E3 show.

Showing 3 comments

James at 9:38pm 25th April 2005 Think it will be more powerful than the three IBM processors in the new Xbox?
fungku at 6:28pm 25th April 2005 No kidding. The PS3 is gonna rock if it even has half the power of this.
James at 9:54am 25th April 2005 48 SDTV format MPEG-2 streams is crazy. This sounds like a very powerful CPU. I am anxious to see how the PS3 looks and performs.