IBM, Sony Group (Sony Corporation, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.) and Toshiba Corporation are jointly developing an advanced microprocessor, the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.), for next-generation computing applications and digital consumer electronics. Cell/B.E. is a multicore chip comprising a 64-bit Power processor core and multiple synergistic processor cores capable of massive floating point processing. Cell/B.E. is optimized for compute-intensive workloads and broadband rich media applications, including computer entertainment, movies and other forms of digital content.
Linux was ported to the Cell/B.E. architecture early during the design phase of the processor, and was used extensively in simulation and during bringup. With our team at the IBM Böblingen development lab, in cooperation with the STI Design Center in Austin, we are currently working on providing support to run Linux on a Cell/B.E. based system. As a part of the world-wide IBM Linux Technology Center, we are responsible for the design, development and test of Linux on this new architecture. We are also contributing to the GNU toolchain work, e.g. compiler, debugger and performance tools for the Cell/B.E. platform.