Toshiba expected to sell laptop powered by Cell processor
Computer manufacturer Toshiba is expected to release at least one notebook this year that uses the Cell Broadband Engine, a chip architecture that helps power the Sony PlayStation 3 game console.
Industry analysts indicate the Toshiba Qosmio G40 laptop will use the SpursEngine SE1000 chip, after a working prototype was introduced to the consumer market in January. Working samples of the SE1000 chip were made available at the beginning of last month.
The SE1000 has four Cell Synergistic Processing Element (SPE) cores, which can handle MPEG 2 and H.264 encoding, while decoding at a full 1080p resolution. The chip has a 1.5GHz clock frequency and consumers just 10W to 20W of power.
Cell can utilize up to eight SPEs and is controlled by a CPU element, while the SE1000 is controlled by a PCI-E controller. The SpursEngine has the same processing capabilities as the Cell, but it's just a tad bit slower.
Toshiba is working with Corel, CyberLink, Leadtek and other software makers to ensure its SE1000 is supported in future software releases, the company said.
After it threw in the towel over its HD DVD format, Toshiba is strongly promoting Cell technology for notebooks and TVs, and fuel cells to help increase notebook battery life. The company had a good streak of success with its NAND flash, disk drives and cell phones, but the NAND market has dropped while demand for the company's disk drives and cell phones also have seen a significant decrease.
Developed by Toshiba, Sony and IBM, the Cell processor was promoted in 2005 as the next-generation processor for TVs, notebooks, DVD players and high-definition players. IBM's BladeCenter QS20 was the first Cell-based blade server released on the market in late 2006, but few other Cell implementations have arrived since the PlayStation 3 launched.
Toshiba said it is working on several TV models that will use the Cell processor, but they are not expected until mid-2009.
