Supercomputer on a chip unveiled

Highly anticipated Cell microprocessor aims at Intel

	Jim Kahle, IBM director of technology for Cell technology, holds up a new Cell chip during a news conference in San Francisco Monday.
Paul Sakuma / AP

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updated 6:11 p.m. ET Feb. 7, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO - Setting up a battle for the future of computing, engineers from IBM, Sony and Toshiba unveiled details Monday of a microprocessor they claim has the muscle of a supercomputer and can power everything from video game consoles to business computers.

Devices built with the processor, code-named Cell, will compete directly with the PC chips that have powered most of the world’s personal computers for a quarter century.

Cell’s designers say their chip, built from the start with the burgeoning world of rich media and broadband networks in mind, can deliver 10 times the performance over today’s PC processors.

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It also will not carry the same technical baggage that has made most of today’s computers compatible with older PCs. That architectural divergence will challenge the current dominant paradigm of computing that Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. have fostered.

The new chip is expected to be used in Sony Corp.’s next-generation PlayStation game console. Toshiba plans to incorporate it into a high-end televisions. And IBM has said it will sell a workstation with the chip.

Beyond that, companies are remaining coy about where it might be used and whether it will be compatible with older technology.

“With this massive computing power, we’ll get to the point where we’ll get closer to photo realistic-type effect that will be able to be generated by the computer,” said Jim Kahle, an IBM Corp. fellow.

Supercomputer claims are nothing new in the high-tech industry, and over the years chip and computer companies have steadily improved microprocessor performance even without altering chips’ underlying architecture.

And while its competitors may well match the Cell chip in performance by the time it debuts in 2006, it differs considerably from today’s processors in constitution.

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