The multicore Cell processor was developed with Sony and Toshiba

The Cell chip was co-developed with Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. and originally designed for video-game consoles. IBM is offering its version of the processor, called the Cell Broadband Engine, in a blade system for customers who want high-performance computing power combined with fast graphics.

Called the BladeCenter QS20, IBM's new system is also aimed at companies in the digital animation, aerospace, defense, communications and gas industries. Pricing for each QS20 blade starts at $18,995, an IBM spokeswoman said.

The Cell processor consists of an IBM PowerPC processor core combined with eight specialized vector processors. IBM says the processor can deliver "supercomputer-like performance," although most existing applications will likely have to be rewritten to take full advantage of the architecture.
The company demonstrated a cluster of prototype Cell blade servers at the CeBIT trade show in Germany this year. One of the applications being shown allowed visitors to view a 3-D model of a beating heart, turn it around and cut it into cross-sections using a mouse.

Researchers at the Germany-based Fraunhofer Institute said they took a few months to port the application to the Cell system, since the program had to be divided into many independent, parallel tasks.
The base configuration of the QS20 includes two cell processors each running at 2.3 GHz, 1GB of memory (512MB per processor), a 40GB hard drive, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports and one or two InfiniBand adapters connected with Peripheral Component Interconnect Express. IBM suggests using Red Hat Inc.'s Fedora 5 Linux operating system.

Test versions of the blade server have been running at various organizations, including the University of Manchester in the U.K, IBM said. The university said it picked the Cell system because it offers faster performance while occupying less space and using less power.

In a hospital setting, the BladeCenter QS20 could reduce from minutes to seconds the amount of time it takes for doctors to compare and map 3-D medical images, according to IBM. In aerospace and defense, it could make radars more sensitive and more accurate, according to the company.

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