Editing Cell (processor) (section)

==Applications==
{{Main|Cell microprocessor implementations}}

===Video processing card===
Some companies, such as [[Leadtek]], have released [[PCI-E]] cards based upon the Cell to allow for "faster than real time" transcoding of [[H.264]], [[MPEG-2]] and [[MPEG-4]] video.<ref>{{Cite web |date=November 12, 2009 |title=Leadtek PxVC1100 MPEG-2/H.264 Transcoding Card |url=http://www.legitreviews.com/leadtek-pxvc1100-mpeg-2h-264-transcoding-card_1134}}</ref>

===Blade server===
On August 29, 2007, IBM announced the [[BladeCenter]] QS21. Generating a measured 1.05 giga–floating point operations per second (gigaFLOPS) per watt, with peak performance of approximately 460&nbsp;GFLOPS it is one of the most power efficient computing platforms to date. A single BladeCenter chassis can achieve 6.4 tera–floating point operations per second (teraFLOPS) and over 25.8 teraFLOPS in a standard 42U rack.<ref>{{Cite press release |title=IBM Doubles Down on Cell Blade |date=August 29, 2007 |publisher=[[IBM]] |location=Armonk, New York |url=http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22258.wss |access-date=July 19, 2017}}</ref>

On May 13, 2008, IBM announced the [[BladeCenter]] QS22. The QS22 introduces the PowerXCell 8i processor with five times the double-precision floating point performance of the QS21, and the capacity for up to 32&nbsp;GB of DDR2 memory on-blade.<ref>{{Cite press release |title=IBM Offers High Performance Computing Outside the Lab |date=May 13, 2008 |publisher=[[IBM]] |location=Armonk, New York |url=http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24180.wss |access-date=July 19, 2017}}</ref>

IBM has discontinued the Blade server line based on Cell processors as of January 12, 2012.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Morgan |first=Timothy Prickett |date=June 28, 2011 |title=IBM to snuff last Cell blade server |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/28/ibm_kills_qs22_blade/ |access-date=July 19, 2017 |work=The Register}}</ref>

===PCI Express board===
Several companies provide PCI-e boards utilising the IBM PowerXCell 8i. The performance is reported as 179.2&nbsp;GFlops (SP), 89.6&nbsp;GFlops (DP) at 2.8&nbsp;GHz.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fixstars Press Release |url=http://www.fixstars.com/en/company/press/20080403.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090105224210/http://www.fixstars.com/en/company/press/20080403.html |archive-date=January 5, 2009 |access-date=August 18, 2008}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Cell-based coprocessor card runs Linux |url=http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6832279023.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090502220203/http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6832279023.html |archive-date=May 2, 2009}}</ref>

===Console video games===
[[Sony]]'s [[PlayStation 3]] [[video game console]] was the first production application of the Cell processor, clocked at 3.2&nbsp;[[GHz]] and containing seven out of eight operational SPEs, to allow Sony to increase the [[Fabrication (semiconductor)#Device test|yield]] on the processor manufacture. Only six of the seven SPEs are accessible to developers as one is reserved by the OS.<ref name="GameDevelMag">{{Cite news |last=Martin Linklater |title=Optimizing Cell Core |work=Game Developer Magazine, April 2007 |pages=15–18 |quote=To increase fabrication yields, Sony ships PlayStation 3 Cell processors with only seven working SPEs. And from those seven, one SPE will be used by the operating system for various tasks, This leaves six SPEs and 1 PPE for game programmers to use.}}</ref>

===Home cinema===
[[File:TOSHIBA 55X1 02.jpg|thumb|B-CAS cards in a Toshiba Cell Regza set-top box, based on the Cell Broadband Engine]]
Toshiba has produced [[High-definition television|HDTVs]] using Cell. They presented a system to decode 48 [[Standard-definition television|standard definition]] [[MPEG-2]] streams simultaneously on a [[1080i|1920×1080]] screen.<ref name="techon">{{Cite news |date=April 25, 2005 |title=Toshiba Demonstrates Cell Microprocessor Simultaneously Decoding 48 MPEG-2 Streams |url=http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050425/104149/?ST=english |publisher=Tech-On!}}</ref><ref name="IEEE_Spectrum">{{Cite magazine |date=January 1, 2006 |title=Winner: Multimedia Monster |url=http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan06/2609 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060118103137/http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan06/2609 |archive-date=January 18, 2006 |access-date=January 22, 2006 |magazine=IEEE Spectrum |df=mdy-all}}</ref> This can enable a viewer to choose a channel based on dozens of thumbnail videos displayed simultaneously on the screen.

=== Laptop PCs ===
Toshiba produced a laptop, [[Qosmio]] G55, released in 2008, that contains Cell technology embedded into it. Its CPU otherwise is an [[Intel Core]] [[x86]]-based chip as is common on [[Toshiba computers]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Eaton |first=Kit |date=July 15, 2008 |title=Toshiba Qosmio G55 is First Laptop With Cell Processor Aboard |url=https://gizmodo.com/toshiba-qosmio-g55-is-first-laptop-with-cell-processor-5025238 |access-date=November 22, 2024 |website=Gizmodo |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Supercomputing===
IBM's supercomputer, [[IBM Roadrunner]], was a hybrid of General Purpose x86-64 [[Opteron]] as well as Cell processors. This system assumed the #1 spot on the June 2008 Top 500 list as the first supercomputer to run at [[FLOPS|petaFLOPS]] speeds, having gained a sustained 1.026 petaFLOPS speed using the standard [[LINPACK benchmark]]. IBM Roadrunner used the PowerXCell 8i version of the Cell processor, manufactured using 65&nbsp;nm technology and enhanced SPUs that can handle double precision calculations in the 128-bit registers, reaching double precision 102&nbsp;GFLOPs per chip.<ref name="roadrunner">{{Cite web |title=Beyond a Single Cell |url=http://www.cs.utk.edu/~dongarra/cell2006/cell-slides/04-Ken-Koch.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090708143100/http://www.cs.utk.edu/~dongarra/cell2006/cell-slides/04-Ken-Koch.pdf |archive-date=July 8, 2009 |access-date=April 6, 2017 |publisher=Los Alamos National Laboratory |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref name="cellscientific">{{Cite web |last=Williams |first=Samuel |last2=Shalf |first2=John |last3=Oliker |first3=Leonid |last4=Husbands |first4=Parry |last5=Kamil |first5=Shoaib |last6=Yelick |first6=Katherine |date=2005 |title=The Potential of the Cell Processor for Scientific Computing |url=http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4262&context=lbnl |access-date=April 6, 2017 |publisher=ACM Computing Frontiers}}</ref>

===Cluster computing===
{{Main | PlayStation 3 cluster}}

Clusters of [[PlayStation 3]] consoles are an attractive alternative to high-end systems based on Cell blades. Innovative Computing Laboratory, a group led by [[Jack Dongarra]], in the Computer Science Department at the University of Tennessee, investigated such an application in depth.<ref name="scop3">{{Cite web |title=SCOP3: A Rough Guide to Scientific Computing On the PlayStation 3 |url=http://www.netlib.org/netlib/utk/people/JackDongarra/PAPERS/scop3.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081015202416/http://www.netlib.org/netlib/utk/people/JackDongarra/PAPERS/scop3.pdf |archive-date=October 15, 2008 |access-date=May 8, 2007 |publisher=Computer Science Department, University of Tennessee |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Terrasoft Solutions is selling 8-node and 32-node PS3 clusters with [[Yellow Dog Linux]] pre-installed, an implementation of Dongarra's research.

As first reported by ''[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]'' on October 17, 2007,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gardiner |first=Bryan |date=October 17, 2007 |title=Astrophysicist Replaces Supercomputer with Eight PlayStation 3s |url=https://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/10/ps3_supercomputer/ |access-date=October 17, 2007 |work=[[Wired (website)|Wired]]}}</ref> an interesting application of using PlayStation 3 in a cluster configuration was implemented by Astrophysicist [[Gaurav Khanna (physicist)|Gaurav Khanna]], from the Physics department of [[University of Massachusetts Dartmouth]], who replaced time used on supercomputers with a cluster of eight PlayStation 3s. Subsequently, the next generation of this machine, now called the ''[[PlayStation 3]] Gravity Grid'', uses a network of 16 machines, and exploits the Cell processor for the intended application which is binary [[black hole]] coalescence using [[perturbation theory]]. In particular, the cluster performs astrophysical simulations of large [[supermassive black hole]]s capturing smaller compact objects and has generated numerical data that has been published multiple times in the relevant scientific research literature.<ref>{{Cite web |title=PS3 Gravity Grid |url=http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/ps3.html |publisher=Gaurav Khanna, Associate Professor, College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth}}</ref> The Cell processor version used by the PlayStation 3 has a main CPU and 6 SPEs available to the user, giving the Gravity Grid machine a net of 16 general-purpose processors and 96 vector processors. The machine has a one-time cost of $9,000 to build and is adequate for black-hole simulations which would otherwise cost $6,000 per run on a conventional supercomputer. The black hole calculations are not memory-intensive and are highly localizable, and so are well-suited to this architecture. Khanna claims that the cluster's performance exceeds that of a 100+ Intel Xeon core based traditional Linux cluster on his simulations. The PS3 Gravity Grid gathered significant media attention through 2007,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gaudin |first=Sharon |date=October 24, 2007 |title=PS3 cluster creates homemade, cheaper supercomputer |url=http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9043942/PS3_cluster_creates_homemade_cheaper_supercomputer |website=Computerworld}}</ref> 2008,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Highfield |first=Roger |date=February 17, 2008 |title=Why scientists love games consoles |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3325757/Why-scientists-love-games-consoles.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090906114152/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3325757/Why-scientists-love-games-consoles.html |archive-date=September 6, 2009 |work=The Daily Telegraph |location=London}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Peckham |first=Matt |date=December 23, 2008 |title=Nothing Escapes the Pull of a PlayStation 3, Not Even a Black Hole |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/22/AR2008122201980.html |work=The Washington Post}}</ref> 2009,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Malik |first=Tariq |date=January 28, 2009 |title=Playstation 3 Consoles Tackle Black Hole Vibrations |url=http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090128-playstation3-blackholes.html |website=[[Space.com]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Lyden |first=Jacki |date=February 21, 2009 |title=Playstation 3: A Discount Supercomputer? |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100969805 |work=[[NPR]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Wallich |first=Paul |date=April 1, 2009 |title=The Supercomputer Goes Personal |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-supercomputer-goes-personal |work=[[IEEE Spectrum]]}}</ref> and 2010.<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 4, 2010 |title=The PlayStation powered super-computer |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11168150 |work=BBC News}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Farrell |first=John |date=November 12, 2010 |title=Black Holes and Quantum Loops: More Than Just a Game |url=https://blogs.forbes.com/johnfarrell/2010/11/12/black-holes-and-quantum-loops-more-than-just-a-game/ |work=Forbes}}</ref>

The computational Biochemistry and Biophysics lab at the [[Universitat Pompeu Fabra]], in [[Barcelona]], deployed in 2007 a [[BOINC]] system called [[GPUGRID.net|PS3GRID]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=PS3GRID.net |url=http://www.ps3grid.net}}</ref> for collaborative computing based on the CellMD software, the first one designed specifically for the Cell processor.

The United States [[Air Force Research Laboratory]] has deployed a PlayStation 3 cluster of over 1700 units, nicknamed the "Condor Cluster", for analyzing [[high-resolution]] [[satellite imagery]]. The Air Force claims the Condor Cluster would be the 33rd largest supercomputer in the world in terms of capacity.<ref>{{Cite web |date=November 30, 2010 |title=Defense Department discusses new Sony PlayStation supercomputer |url=http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/11/defense_department_discusses_n.html}}</ref> The lab has opened up the supercomputer for use by universities for research.<ref>{{Cite web |title=PlayStation 3 Clusters Providing Low-Cost Supercomputing to Universities |url=http://www.govtech.com/technology/PlayStation-3-Providing-Supercomputing-to-Universities.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130514024226/http://www.govtech.com/technology/PlayStation-3-Providing-Supercomputing-to-Universities.html |archive-date=May 14, 2013 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

===Distributed computing===
With the help of the computing power of over half a million PlayStation 3 consoles, the distributed computing project [[Folding@home]] has been recognized by ''[[Guinness World Records]]'' as the most powerful distributed network in the world. The first record was achieved on September 16, 2007, as the project surpassed one [[FLOPS|petaFLOPS]], which had never previously been attained by a distributed computing network. Additionally, the collective efforts enabled PS3 alone to reach the petaFLOPS mark on September 23, 2007. In comparison, the world's second-most powerful supercomputer at the time, IBM's [[Blue Gene/L]], performed at around 478.2&nbsp;teraFLOPS, which means Folding@home's computing power is approximately twice Blue Gene/L's (although the CPU interconnect in Blue Gene/L is more than one million times faster than the mean network speed in Folding@home). As of May 7, 2011, Folding@home runs at about 9.3 x86 petaFLOPS, with 1.6&nbsp;petaFLOPS generated by 26,000 active PS3s alone.

===Mainframes===
IBM announced on April 25, 2007, that it would begin integrating its Cell Broadband Engine Architecture microprocessors into the company's [[IBM Z|System z]] line of mainframes.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=April 26, 2007 |title=IBM Mainframes Go 3-D |url=http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2122352,00.asp?kc=EWEWKEMLP042807BOE1 |access-date=May 18, 2007 |magazine=[[eWeek]]}}</ref> This has led to a [[gameframe]].

===Password cracking===
The architecture of the processor makes it better suited to hardware-assisted cryptographic [[brute-force attack]] applications than conventional processors.<ref>{{Cite news |date=November 30, 2007 |title=PlayStation speeds password probe |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7118997.stm |access-date=January 17, 2011 |work=[[BBC News]]}}</ref>