New Toshiba SpursEngine based on CELL

Sep 20 2007, 3:00am CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Today Toshiba announced development of the SpursEngine, a high-performance stream processor integrating Synergistic Processing Element (SPE) cores derived from the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.TM) used in the Sony PS3.

The SpursEngine is expressly designed to bring the powerful capabilities of the Cell/B.E. technology to consumer electronics, and to take video processing in digital consumer products to new levels of realism and image quality. The SpursEngine prototype will be unveiled at CEATEC JAPAN 2007, at Makuhari Messe, Japan, which starts October 2nd.

Notebook PCs integrating SpursEngine will be used in the world's first public demonstration of the processor's capabilities in 3D image processing and manipulation: real-time transformations of hair styles and makeup that instantaneously recognize and process changes in position, angle, and facial expression, and render them as computer graphics. Toshiba also plans to demonstrate concept notebook PCs integrating the SpursEngine.

SpursEngine, a co-processor that works in cooperation with a host CPU, fuses Cell/B.E.'s high performance multi-core technology with Toshiba's advanced image processing technology to perform stream processing of video sources--image recognition and processing--at the increasingly sophisticated level required by new generations of digital consumer products.

The new co-processor integrates four of Cell/B.E.'s high performance RISC core SPEs, half the number of the full configuration, plus hardware dedicated to decoding and encoding MPEG-2 and H.264 video. By combining the high level, real time processing software of the SPEs with the hardware video codecs, the SpursEngine realizes an optimized balance of processing flexibility and low power consumption. The prototype of SpursEngine operates at a clock frequency of 1.5GHz and consumes power at 10 to 20 watts.
Via this Toshiba press-release.

Updates

April Retail Game Sales Fall 42%

Source: Blue's News

The L.A. Times Website has details from the April sales estimates published by the market researchers at the NPD Group, showing a significant downturn compared April 2011. This shows game sales at U.S. retailers taking in $292.1 mill ...
Full article at: Blue's News More like this 5 days ago, 10:50am CDT

where to buy

Buy from Amazon

Don't miss ...

Luigi Lugmayr
Luigi is the founding chief Editor of I4U News and brings over 15 years experience in the technology field to the ever evolving and exciting world of gadgets. He started I4U News back in 2000 and evolved it into vibrant technology magazine.
Luigi can be contacted directly at ml@i4u.com. Luigi posts regularly on LuigiMe.com about his experience running I4U.