Cell: Now Appearing in IBM Blade


IBM has demonstrated a prototype Blade server equipped with Cell, Nikkei BP reports. The Cell processor is the product of an IBM-Sony-Toshiba collaboration, and both Sony and Toshiba are significant investors in IBM's processor development, and jointly designed the Cell architecture with IBM.

According to the story, Big Blue revealed the prototype Blade to a very select few clients at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) game tradeshow.

The prototype is currently called the Cell Processor Based Blade Server, ad it employed two Cell processors running at 2.4-2.8GHz. In the labs, IBM is reportedly running Cell at 3GHz, which makes it capable of stunning 200 GPLOP performance The prototype was also running Linux 2.6.11.

The three collaborating companies describe Cell as a 'supercomputer on a chip'. It will also be used in Sony's Playstation 3.

Analysis: Cell may be destined for XServe, but don't expect to see it running OS X - at least anytime soon. The fact that IBM may open-source Cell for development is somewhat more intriguing.