Details of the Cell's 45nm shrink have now appeared. The new version of the chip has dropped in power consumption by 40%.This will cut costs as it uses less silicon then the 65nm version and the lower power consumption means a simpler, lower cost cooling system.
Production is due to start in the summer so expect them on the shelves in time for Christmas. I also expect they cut the price again just before Christmas.
Details and pictures of the 45nm shrink are here: (translated) (original version).
Chip geeks can get the full shimmy at RealWorldTech.
On another note details of "Cell 3" have emerged.
"Cell 3" has been seen on IBM slides before as a Cell with 2 PPEs and 32 SPEs but nothing more has been said about it.
According to a presentation the SPEs will be getting some redesign to reduce latency and improve bandwidth. The PPEs on the other look like they light be based on POWER7 technology.
Sounds like it could be a pretty serious piece of kit. It's not known if this particular version will go into a future PS4 or if it'll get it's own "game" version.
If you're wondering what happened to Cell 2, this is the soon to appear HPC version, now named the "PowerXCell 8i".
Details of the PowerXCell 8i and the roadrunner Supercomputer it'll be sitting in are in this presentation [PDF], Cell 3 stuff is on the last slide.
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