Cell Industries :: Cell Broadband Engine Released


	Cell Simulator Released 11-09-2005
	Cell Chip Set Cell Reference Set 9-20-2005
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Cell Broadband Engine Released

Nov 09, 2005 :: IBM releases the Cell Simulator

We have downloaded the software and are in the process of installing. We will provide screen shots and a first impression in a few days. Join our mailing list for up to date information.

Full Story
http://www-03.ibm.com/chips/news/2005/1109_cell.html

Download the development kit
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/cell

Simulation Infrastructure and Tools for the Cell Broadband Engine
href="http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/cellsystemsim

Licensing Survey :: IBM Full-System Simulator for the Cell Broadband Engine Processor
https://secure.alphaworks.ibm.com/reg/awsurvey.nsf/surveylicense?openform&tech=cellsystemsim

XLC IBM’s commercial compiler
https://secure.alphaworks.ibm.com/reg/awsurvey.nsf/surveylicense?openform&tech=cellcompiler

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/cellcompiler?open&ca=drs-aw&S_TACT=105AGX21&S_CMP=AWRSS"

IBM has released enough software to allow anyone to experiment with Cell Processor Code – everything can be downloaded for free from one place.

However two parts of this package are restricted by an IBM License. At the moment this license is free, but it seems the software may timeout – not sure about that yet.

The Simulator and LXC Compiler are both restricted – you can go to these pages and request a license. These pages seem to be as much a survey to see what people want as an actual license request. We recommend you go to those pages and fill them out – this will help IBM gauge interest. There are many text boxes which allow you to tell IBM what you think.

If you think IBM should open source this stuff – maybe you should tell them that

You can also maybe give IBM an idea about how excited (or not) you are about Cell and how much effort you and your company are willing to invest in writing or port code for Cell.

Maybe IBM should gibe away the software tools and sell the chips. Tell IBM what you think.

Maybe tell them what you think of Linux and where Linux fits in your plans.

If you appreciate IBM standing up for Open Source and fighting with SCO for example – maybe you could mention that also.

Here is how I look at this. If you have a compute bound application, figure out what code is actually creating the bottleneck. Strip that code out and try to port it to Cell. The simulator should have enough tools to tell you how fast your code would run on real cell Hardware. If anyone does that and has estimates of speed ratio compared with X86 – we will be happy to put those results up on this site. We will be doing similar things.

In a month I hope to start showing the world the real potential for Cell and the pent up demand for real speed.