Randall Shimizu wrote:
Cell processor and Chartered Semiconductor
Manufacturing
Chartered inks deals with Microsoft, IBM
(http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=186500351
)
This news caught me by suprise.... I was suprised to
learn that IBM was subcontracting the cell chip
manufacturing to a east asian company. This is really
a wakeup call for the US. The Cell chip is the leading
edge of US technology semiconductor technology;
Uh. No. It's not even close to being that. It's not even leading edge
design.
The leading edge of semiconductor technology is flash memory. Flash
memory has far higher density that anything else we manufacture right
now (was shipping 65nm parts *today*, was about to shift to 45nm or so
shortly). It used to be DRAM, but then microprocessors took over, and
then flash took over from that.
90nm is a standard process at TSMC, UMC, and a bunch of others.
As for the cell processor, it's really quite a lame VLSI design. It is
a big scalar, VLIW machine. Create a simple core, stamp out a bunch of
copies, done. This means that is does not have the ability to do
out-of-order execution, a capability present in every modern general
purpose microprocessor. It is also a capability which the game
programmers are complaining bitterly about losing as the lack makes AI
code run *much* slower.
Now, since it is a wide VLIW machine, it eats polygon vertex
computations like nothing else on the planet. Just don't ask it to make
decisions.
Thus, the next generation of games will *look* beautiful but will *play*
them same as what we already have.
-a
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