MIT Students Unravel PS3's Processor

Paul Sinclair • Apr 23, 2007 • Comments ()

Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have now completed the Independent Activities Period course, which explored the capabilities of the PS3's Cell Broadband Engine. Supported by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, students were encouraged to study the new microprocessor and introducing parallel programming to them by desiging and implementing applications to run directly on the PS3 system.

"The fact that students with no background in parallel programming or the Cell/B.E. were able to get their projects done from scratch in just about one month largely goes to show the capability and determination of our students, coupled with the availability of a robust toolchain for Cell/B.E. development," said Saman Amarasinghe, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT.

"Cell/B.E. is going to be an underlying architecture that has the potential to be included in a wide range of industry applications and solutions in the future," said Dr. Rodric Rabbah, IBM Research. "This course was able to break down the details of a highly complex microprocessor and challenge students to see where the performance, power and versatility could be applied outside of gaming. Based on the feedback we received from the students, it was a tremendous success."