By David Craddock
Toshiba president Tadashi Okamura has given confirmation that the CELL chip’s development is finally nearing completion.
“The CELL will be used in IBM’s computer, Sony’s game machine, and Toshiba’s digital consumer electronics, among other things,” Okamura said. “It will change the world.”
Though concrete details on the CELL chip remain shrouded in mystery, the commercial production of the chip is scheduled to begin sometime next year. CELL has been in development since 2001 Toshiba, Sony, and IBM, and is a next-generation multimedia processor able to handle graphics intensive applications (read as: video games!) and high-bandwidth communications. Sony has long planned to use CELL in its next-generation video game console, PlayStation 3.