PS3 Cell Processor to Power Breakthrough Computer Systems

Mercury Computer Systems has announced that it will partner with IBM to integrate the Cell microprocessor technology, the ‘brain’ powering Sony’s upcoming Playstation3 console (PS3), to build new breakthrough computer systems for data-intensive applications. The company says it is the first outside of the gaming industry to use Cell microprocessor technology design services from IBM.

The alliance offers Mercury access to IBM’s vast trove of technology capabilities through IBM’s Engineering and Technology Services group. Mercury has initial plans to integrate the Cell microprocessor technology into a wide variety of future products, with the aim of dramatically boosting computing performance in Mercury’s customer applications. By incorporating Cell technology, Mercury intends to take demanding applications such as radar, sonar, MRI, CT, digital X-ray, and others to a new level of sophistication and performance.

Optimized Cell-based products will be targeted at current and new applications in medical imaging, industrial inspection, aerospace and defense, seismic processing, and telecommunications. New sensor capabilities in these markets are dramatically increasing the volumes of available data to be processed. For example, applying the processing power of Cell technology in medical imaging can yield significant improvements in image quality – enabling earlier detection of diseases and potentially saving lives.

The Cell processor, developed by IBM, Toshiba and Sony Group, is a breakthrough architectural design featuring eight synergistic processing elements plus a Power Architecture(TM)-based core that provides unmatched performance levels in many computationally intense applications. The Cell processor has peak performance in excess of 200 GFLOPS — which equates to 200 billion floating-point operations per second — as measured during initial hardware testing.

"The tremendous performance advantages afforded by the Cell processor will enable Mercury to address an even broader range of computer-intensive challenges for our customers," said Jay Bertelli, president and chief executive officer, Mercury Computer Systems.