Sony and partners announced details about the Cell processor

IBM, Sony Corp., Sony Computer Entertainment, and Toshiba Corp. said Monday that the companies had "powered on" the first workstation designed around the collaboratively-designed "Cell" processor, which will begin pilot production next year. The companies confirmed further details of the new chip and also said additional disclosures will be made at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco beginning Feb. 6.

The "Cell" processor's claim to fame is that it will serve as the processor powering Sony Computer Entertainment's next-generation entertainment console, the PlayStation 3. However, the PowerPC-derived, 64-bit multicore chip is also designed to be scalable, allowing it to be used in products from consumer-electronic devices to workstations and some servers. More information over at