Power Processing Element

The Power Processing Element (PPE) comprises a Power Processing Unit (PPU) and a 512 KB L2 cache. In most instances the PPU is used in a PPE. The PPU is a 64-bit dual-threaded in-order PowerPC 2.02 microprocessor core designed by IBM for use primarily in the game consoles PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but has also found applications in high performance computing in supercomputers such as the record setting IBM Roadrunner. The PPU is used as a main CPU core in three different processor designs: * The Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE) which is used primarily in Sony's PlayStation 3 gaming console. It uses the PPE and comes in three versions, a 90 nm, a 65 nm and a 45 nm part. * The PowerXCell 8i which is a version of the Cell BE with enhanced FPU and memory subsystem. It was only manufactured as a single 65 nm version. * The XCPU which is used in a three-core configuration and a unified 1 MB L2 cache inside Microsoft's Xbox 360. It comes in three versions, the 90 nm and 65 nm versions, and the 45 nm XCGPU with an integrated graphics processor from ATI.

The Power Processing Element (PPE) comprises a Power Processing Unit (PPU) and a 512 KB L2 cache. In most instances the PPU is used in a PPE. The PPU is a 64-bit dual-threaded in-order PowerPC 2.02 microprocessor core designed by IBM for use primarily in the game consoles PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but has also found applications in high performance computing in supercomputers such as the record setting IBM Roadrunner. The PPU is used as a main CPU core in three different processor designs: The Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE) which is used primarily in Sony's PlayStation 3 gaming console. It uses the PPE and comes in three versions, a 90 nm, a 65 nm and a 45 nm part. The PowerXCell 8i which is a version of the Cell BE with enhanced FPU and memory subsystem. It was only manufactured as a single 65 nm version. The XCPU which is used in a three-core configuration and a unified 1 MB L2 cache inside Microsoft's Xbox 360. It comes in three versions, the 90 nm and 65 nm versions, and the 45 nm XCGPU with an integrated graphics processor from ATI. Its 64-bit double-precision floating-point unit, and 128-bit VMX unit (using the AltiVec instruction set), can perform a theoretical 12 floating-point operations per cycle, as its floating-point unit can do floating-point multiply-adds, and come no smaller than 64-bits. That gives 3.2 billion clock cycles × 12 = 38.4 billion floating-point operations/second. The PPU is enhanced in the PowerXCell 8i processor to be able to make single cycle double precision floating point operations, tailored for high performance computing in supercomputers. The VMX unit in the XCPU in the Xbox 360 is enhanced with 128 registers and is not entirely compatible with regular AltiVec. ==References==

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1244434388 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.