Cell and SHARC

Frontline Studio · Post by **Frontline Studio** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:43 am

Hi all,

Just been reading about the new Cell processor which outruns the Pentium IV about a hunderd times! The makers, a conglomerate of IBM, Toshiba and (Oh NO!) Sony, claim it's suitable for a wide variety of applications: video, audio, PC, television, all kinds of electrical household devices...

I was wondering what the Cell's advantage would be in the light of the SHARC DSP processors on our Creamware cards? Could the Cell replace the SHARC? Would it be worth while for Creamware to explore the possibilities?

wayne · Post by **wayne** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:47 am

funny you should mention that

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:15 am

On 2005-02-10 01:43, Frontline Studio wrote:
Hi all,

Just been reading about the new Cell processor which outruns the Pentium IV about a hunderd times! ....

even a Motorola 68K can do that trick if the PIV runs some of the usual office bs...

Seriously, I'll never forget a certain floorplan drawing which I did 'for convenience...' with that app

but let's keep the technical discussion under the link mentioned by Wayne

cheers, Tom

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 9:05 am

Switching architectures would mean having to re-code just about all the DSP code (and a good chunk of the rest), which probably wouldn't be worth it considering the time/effort needed, and their market.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:27 am

a peek in my DSP folder reveals 800 (relevant) items adding to 5 MByte of object code...
dunno how compact that stuff compiles but that's hundreds of thousands of lines of source.
when they are adapted - the thing is outdated...

of course that's complete nonsense: you have to rewrite each module from scratch because the architecture is completely different.
one can use the existing DSP stuff as a roadmap at best - and I'm not even sure that all and everything was written by CWA themselves.
It could as well be licenced object code by AD on which CWA applied their proprietairy (interface) wrapper.

cheers, tom