IBM Integrates PS3 Processor in Mainframes

April 30, 2007: Mainframe systems will soon be able to claim kinship with Sony’s Playstation 3, with IBM announcing that it will be integrating its Cell Broadband Engine with its mainframe systems.

While designed with gaming in mind, the Cell engine is exceedingly good at some forms of calculations, physics simulations for example. Due to this, integration with mainframes lets certain kinds of calculations to be offloaded to the processor so it can do what it is best at, enabling the rest of the system to focus on other tasks.

This kind of hybrid computing is becoming increasingly popular, as delegating tasks among "specialty processors," increases overall system efficiency. IBM says in its system, the Cell/B.E. will handle the complex simulation needed in creating virtual worlds - for example, a ball thrown in a virtual reality world must obey the laws of gravity.

To further develop the technology, IBM will be working with Brazil’s Hoplon Infortainment, an online gaming company who has developed software key for message passing and physics simulation in the new online worlds.

"As online environments increasingly incorporate aspects of virtual reality - including 3D graphics and lifelike, real-time interaction among many simultaneous users - companies of all types will need a computing platform that can handle a broad spectrum of demanding performance and security requirements," said Jim Stallings, general manager, IBM System z. "To serve this market, the Cell/B.E. processor is the perfect complement to the mainframe, the only server designed to handle millions of simultaneous users."

For now the integration is handled by networking the mainframe with Cell blades, however, IBM is planning a PCI adaptor card so the processor can be plugged directly into the system.

Comment on this story