Cell processor part III -> The Apple Connection?
When Steve Jobs invited Kunitake Ando, president of Sony on stage for his annual January keynote every one who read or saw this had its head spinning. What was this? There could only be one more thing that is stranger and that would be inviting Bill Gates on this stage. Rumors and personal thoughts are rampant throughout the net. It would all have made sense when Sonys president would have unvieled some new ultra cool HDV gadget that only works with Mac (or at least works with Macs first). But there was no announcements. The only thing was the pretty cool HDV cam from Sony on stage - but this was about it. Instead the Sony president went into classic japanese philosophical talk about how wonderful the world is and that the cooperation between Apple and Sony - besides some rivalries - is wonderful and all. Happy sunshine... all is about money and market so this had to be something deeper and I could not figure it out.
Then yesterday I read Robert Xs I, Cringerly blog and it talks about how Apple might enter the Movie distribution bussiness with HD(T)V only. That this is the only way to go forward against cable company monopolies and all. And then I look at my lousy 768Down 128Up DSL line and I think download streaming a HDV movie is about as fast as driving to a VideoRentalStore on the other side of the globe. I already wait very very long for a Movie Trailer that is not even normal Video resolution and has only three minutes content. So I guess that is not it - or at least not the full story.
Then I stumble across an article today that desects the Cell processor developed by Sony, Toshiba and (manufactured by) IBM. And then it all falls together... Apple is on board even though through the nature of their secrecy regarding future products they have not made it public. Apple could benefit from the Cell processor tremendously. Its a processor build around distributed computing. So called Software Cells - or apulets - are sending themself around a home stuffed with hardware Cells (the actual processors in a multitude of machines ranging from HDTV sets to Playstation III, Server and PDAs, to Apples minis II or even the future iPods?) .
Now I would go even further. Apple is using a derative of the Cell in all future machines. The Cell is derivative of the Power5 architecture. Now Apples up coming "G6" processor will also be a derivative of the same Power5 architecture. Am I implying that the Cell and the G6 will basically be close to the same thing? Not exactly the same but I would suggest that they are fitting together so well that in an adhoc Cell network a G6 will also be recognized as a Cell and be used as a node.
There is another fitting too close to overlook and its the Vector Unit or APUs (Attached Processor Units) in the Cell Processor. A Cell processor will have 8 APUs (in addition to one Processor Unit (PU)) and they closely resemble what we know today as AltiVec. The difference is that each APU is an independent processor (while AltiVec is always dependent on its host) and it has 128 registers instead of Alitvecs 32 but its likely that the instruction set is very similar and both are clearly vector processing beasts.
Still not very convinced that Apple is going the Cell way the article points out this:
If I was to write Cell code on OS X the exact same Cell code would run on Windows, Linux or Zeta because in all cases it is the hardware Cells which execute it.
That goes that the Cell processor is absolutely abstraction layer free. That means programs that run on Cells are all the same as they run on the hardware and not on some obscure abstraction layer inside the OS. Of course that would mean all the OSīs have to be rewritten to run on the Cell. Now I do think that Apple is the vendor that is in the best position to write an OS for the Cell as the Cell is a derivative of the Power family and the G5/G6 are/will be also - but donīt count out Linux (with PPC Linux) and Microsoft (with XBox development on PPC and VirtualPC software).
Now another thing that connects the Cell with appearance of Sonys president: DRM. Yes we all hate it. Everyone would say no processor with build in DRM will ever get sold etc etc. The thing is the Cell might be THE processor that can establish DRM and free Apple, Sony and the others from ever thinking about bad marketing again. If Cell is very very fast as all specs suggest it will appeal to the geeks and the general market and the fact that there is DRM built in will just get accepted. I for one said once I would never buy a computer with a DRM chip - if the cell processor is as cool as all the specs suggest and Apple supports this platform I will be on board as this adds a whole new paradigm to realtime 3D rendering and HD(T)V video processing. DRM will get broken or circumvented sooner or later I am sure.
The Cell architecture is essentially a general purpose PowerPC CPU with a set of 8 very high performance vector processors and a fast memory and I / O system, this is coupled with a very clever task distribution system which allows ad-hoc clusters to be set up.
Great given the fact that Core Image that Apple develops is capable of running on the Graphic Board OR the main Processor when the graphic board is not fast enough or has not enough memory OR any other helper chip with fast enough interconnected memory the cell processor could elevate Core Image to a true realtime content creation machine.
The first Cell based desktop computer will be the fastest desktop computer in the industry by a very large margin. Even high end multi-core x86s will not get close. Companies who produce microprocessors or DSPs are going to have a very hard time fighting the power a Cell will deliver. We have never seen a leap in performance like this before and I don't expect we'll ever see one again, It'll send shock-waves through the entire industry and we'll see big changes as a result.
So now say Apple wouldnīt be interested to once and for all leave the rest of the pack behind. Get along with Sony who would produce the CONSUMER side of things and Apple fullfill the CREATORs need and soon you see a fit that is more then about iPods and HDCams (of course an iPod army with Cellprocessors to speed up that High Definition Ultra Big 3D rendering would be very welcomed ;)