Posted on 05/11/2008 11:30:50 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Toshiba plans to equip some of its multimedia-oriented mobile computers with its multimedia processor that can accelerate various applications, including graphics, physics, video and so on. Toshiba did not disclose how much its customers should pay for the part.
On the 8th of May Toshiba disclosed its growth strategies for investors for the year 2008, one of which was integration of the SpursEngine processor into advanced media center AV Qosmio notebooks. According to Toshiba, the Cell-derivative processor will upscale standard picture quality to high definition resolution. While the manufacturer did not disclose into details, it claimed that the notebook would be available in 2008.
It will depend on software support whether special-purpose accelerator from Toshiba brings any benefits, but recently the company announced that its chip is supported by such software companies as Corel and Cyberlink.
SpursEngine is a co-processor that integrates four of Cell high-performance RISC core SPEs, half the number of the full configuration, hardware dedicated to decoding and encoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 video, XDR memory interface as well as PCI Express interface. 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 10W to 20W.
The SpursEngine SE1000 reference board is compliant with PCI Express 1.1 x1 and x4 slots, sports 128MB of 1.6GHz XDR memory and carries SpursEngine processor at unknown clock-speed.
Toshiba’s SpursEngine processor may be used for various products and in various markets. In the computer industry the SpursEngine may be used for video processing, graphics computations, physics computations and various other applications that involve processing of data streams. Potentially, video professionals may find useful to decode or encode four full-HD (1920x1080 with progressive scan, 1080p) streams at once. In the consumer space currently only two full-HD video decoders are required to provide picture-in-picture functionality on Blu-ray and HD DVD players, however, as high-definition television becomes more popular and more channels are broadcasted digitally, four-way video processing may become a necessary feature for advanced HDTVs.
fyi
Toshiba readies Cell-based graphics engine
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By Tony Smith [More by this author]
Toshiba will next week formally announce a processor based on the Cell chip that sits inside each Sony PlayStation 3 games console. The new CPU will be pitched not only at consumer electronics kit but set head-to-head with today's PC and Mac graphics chips.
To be fair to Nvidia, AMD and co., Toshiba's October announcement only covers a prototype of the bizarrely named SpursEngine processor - no, it's not going to be fabbed in Tottenham - as the company has yet to finalise the products specifications.
What it'll be showing off on 2 October at Japan's CEATEC exhibition is a version of SpursEngine that contains four of the Synergistic Processing Element (SPE) cores that, along with a PowerPC-based general-purpose processing core, make up the PS3's CPU.
Toshiba's SpursEngine: own goal or champion GPU?
Alongside those four SPEs sit dedicated H.264 and MPEG 3 decode and encode circuitry, along with 256KB of on-chip data storage. The prototype processor will be clocked at 1.5GHz, Toshiba said, and consume 10-20W - depending on load, presumably.
Like the PS3, the SpursEngine is designed to connect to Rambus' high-speed XDR memory, and can sit on a x1, x2 or x4 PCI Express 1.1 graphics card.
The chip will be demo'd in a notebook computer - Toshiba's big on laptops, don't forget - which it said will be grabbing attendees faces, rendering them as computer animations and applying hair styles and make-up in real-time.
Not quite, Metal Gear Solid, Gears of War or Crysis, we'll admit, but you can see that Toshiba has these kinds of applications in mind too. Whether the SpursEngine operates with Microsoft's PC gaming foundation software, DirectX 10, remains to be seen.
Toshiba Begins Sampling Cell-chip Derived SpursEngine
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Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Monday, April 07, 2008 10:00 PM PDT
Toshiba has taken the final step towards launch of a high-performance chip derived from the powerful Cell processor that powers Sony's PlayStation 3 games console. On Tuesday it began offering samples of the chip, called the SpursEngine SE1000, to electronics companies ahead of a commercial launch likely later this year.
The SpursEngine is a co-processor -- that's a chip designed to sit alongside a main processor in a system and handle heavy jobs like real-time graphics processing and video manipulation.
Inside the chip are four processor cores of the same type used in the Cell chip and a hardware codec for encoding and decoding high-definition MPEG2 and H.264 video streams. It runs at 1.5GHz and consumes between 10 watts and 20 watts of power, said Toshiba.
A demonstration of the SpursEngine at last October's Ceatec show in Japan provided a taste of the kinds of things it can make possible.
The chip was loaded into a laptop PC that was also receiving an image from a video camera. When someone sat down in front of the camera the SpursEngine was able to take the video image and in real-time simulate a new hairstyle or make-up. The system worked in three dimensions so as the person moved their head the computer-generated new hairstyle on the screen moved to match their head's angle and direction. Such real-time processing is difficult to do with a less capable processor.
With a supply of the sample chips companies will now be able to begin working on products that make use of the processor.
Toshiba anticipates a good market for the SpursEngine and has set a sale target of 6 million chips during the first three years on sale. The sample chip costs ¥10,000 (US$98) and Toshiba expects the commercial chip will sell for about US$50 in bulk quantities.
Among the first SpursEngine-based products are likely to be computer graphics cards. Toshiba said Tuesday that it has formed partnerships with Corel, CyberLink and Leadtek on hardware and software products that will make use of the power of the chip.
To help developers Toshiba said it will offer a reference kit that includes a PCI Express reference board and middleware APIs. A development environment including compiler, debugger and performance monitor will also be offered.
The development of the SpursEngine and this final step towards launch is a big moment for Toshiba.
It began laying the groundwork for the chip in 2001 when it teamed with Sony and IBM on development of the Cell microprocessor. For Sony the Cell was always about the PlayStation 3 but Toshiba's involvement from an early stage had living room consumer electronics products as a target.
Both Sony and Toshiba have said in the past that they plan to bring Cell technology into the consumer electronics devices. Sony has yet to show any such prototype products but Toshiba used this year's CES show to unveil a prototype TV with a Cell chip. The Cell is a step-up from the SpursEngine and includes eight processor cores plus a main processor. The TV was able to handle multiple TV streams simultaneously and realtime upscaling of video images.
Toshiba to Use Cell-based SpursEngine graphics chip in its multimedia Laptops,/b>
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Sunday, May 11, 2008
During 2008, Toshiba is going to change the graphics chips of its Multimedia laptops and its flagship laptop Qosmio G40 with new one called SpursEngine graphics chip. This graphics is Cell-based means “it is based on the technology that powers the PlayStation 3's Cell processor”.
So, Toshiba is going to equip its Qosmio G40 and other multimedia laptop with SpursEngine SE1000 chip which is incorporates four of Cell's Synergistic Processing Element (SPE) cores, a memory controller on board that links the SPEs (SPE is a SIMD Risc processor) to 128MB of Rambus XDR memory over a bus capable of pushing data at 12.8GB/s. according to the source.
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This graphics chip can easily support high-def contents up to 1080p full HD resolution and the products needing rather than 3D graphics
Additionally, by the help of this technology, Toshiba is going to offer super-resolution to its PC, TV and DVD player lines in the autumn of 2009.
Source: reghardware
any battery life on those things? mine sucks.
So even if you can pull off the technical feat of making the thing work in the first place, then, after that, conquering the problem of developer mindshare is just about impossible.
But, like I said, co-processors are a really, really neat idea.
*As a "for instance" - do you have any idea how much work has gone into the simple problem of making the sound card and the video card respond at the same time so that DVD movie playback doesn't end up with actors mouthing words which aren't there, or not mouthing words which are there?
Or, as another "for instance", to this day, there are still major new soundcard chipsets being released with drivers which crash on dual processor systems, and there are loads of software CODECs out there which crash on dual processor systems.
I might be interested in this laptop...
Could this have been why Tosh gave up so easily on HD and wrapped their arms around Sony’s BluRay?
Their new 780 G chipset is an interesting idea of using the motherboard chipset to do graphics offload of the graphics processing for low level games...etc.
No idea...
I looked at them a couple years ago, expensive,, but worth a try for videots and such,, has a lot of capabilities built-in multimedia-wise.
We need a breakthru on batteries.. 100 hour charges, time for a Manhattan project. ;-)
AMD's Fusion chip will be based on Phenom processor
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Agam Shah, IDG News Service
January 25, 2008
Advanced Micro Devices gave further details of its upcoming Fusion processor, saying it will be based on the design of a microprocessor used in the desktops currently shipping to enthusiast PC users such as gamers.
The Fusion chip, which will combine a graphics processing unit and CPU on one chip, will be a redesign of the company's current Phenom processor, said Patrick Moorhead, vice president of advanced marketing at AMD, in an interview. However, the Fusion chip will witness significant design changes from the current iteration of Phenom, Moorhead said.
The Fusion chip, code-named Swift, will be shrunk from the Phenom core and be optimized for use in a notebook, Moorhead said. The optimization will focus on making the chip more power-efficient while increasing graphics capabilities, Moorhead said.
The graphics processing unit on the Fusion chip will include multiple "mini-cores" that breaks down code from a program, like 3-D games, to process data faster, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. Fusion's graphics processor will be based on a graphics card AMD plans to release in the near future, Taylor said, declining to give details.
The first Fusion chips will be released as dual-core CPUs for notebooks, followed by quad-core CPUs for notebooks, Moorhead said. The dual-core notebook processors will be available in the second half of 2009, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. The company didn't provide a timeline for the quad-core chips.
Fusion chips will also be released eventually for desktops, Taylor said, although he declined to comment on a release date.
Originally released as part of the "Spider" multimedia platform last year, the Phenom processor has an integrated memory controller, cache, and four cores on a single chip. Currently available in speeds up to 2.3GHz, AMD earlier this month delayed the shipment of the faster Phenom 9700 and 9900 quad-core processors to the second quarter. The company is due to ship a triple-core Phenom processor later this year.
The Fusion CPU is part of Project Shrike, the next-generation platform that will be an upgrade to the company's upcoming Puma platform. It includes the Turion Ultra processor, code-named Griffin. The Puma platform boosts a system's graphics performance by running both the integrated graphics processor and a graphics card attached to the motherboard together.
Like Puma, additional graphics cards can be attached to boost performance of systems based on Project Shrike, Taylor said.
Fusion chips will be made using AMD's 45-nanometer production technology, said Mario Rivas, executive vice president of the computing products group, during a meeting in December.
Fusion isn't being designed for ultramobile PCs, Moorhead said. "The jury is still out on whether the UMPC market has legs or not. But we'll see," Moorhead said.
Plans to launch the Fusion chip were announced when AMD bought ATI for $5.4 billion in 2006. The acquisition of ATI was also viewed as a potent weapon in AMD's attempt to dent Intel's domination of the x86 processor market. However, AMD has struggled lately, announcing five straight quarterly losses, delaying processor shipments, and falling behind Intel in chip production.
Intel has already rolled out more than 30 Penryn-based chips based on the 45-nm process, with AMD still producing chips using the older 65-nm process.
Not sure what Intel and Nvidia are up to....
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Late Tuesday, in response to questions from Forbes.com, an Apple spokesman said Apple has agreed to buy a boutique microprocessor design company called PA Semi. The company, which is known for its design of sophisticated, low-power chips, could spell a new future for Apple's flagship iPhone, and possibly iPod products as well.
Link to EE Times regarding PA Semi:
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I would be real careful about buying a new Laptop real soon.
can anyone translate this?
It seems more japanese dead end format wars.
Toshiba and Sony are laptops to avoid just for this issue.
I bought a new battery from Toshiba for my Satellite A105 laptop. Different type: 8-cell LI-ON, IIRC.
Battery life jumped from 45 minutes to 3 hours.
Worth the hundred bucks it cost? Most definitely.
Toshiba....sorry, still resentful over them selling the Soviets the milling machinery to make ultra-quiet wheels for their John Walker class subs.....
The chip that runs the PlayStation 3 is insanely fast for games and multimedia (it can process six hi-def video streams simultaneously) but not so good for running a whole computer. This puts a smaller version of that chip in a computer in addition to the regular processor.
In 1987, Toshiba Machine, the subsidiary of Toshiba, was accused of illegally selling CNC milling machines used to produce very quiet submarine propellers to the Soviet Union in violation of the CoCom agreement, an international embargo on Western exports to East Bloc countries. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. The incident strained relations between the United States and Japan, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives, as well as the imposition of sanctions on the company by both countries.[1] The US had always relied on the fact that the Soviets had noisy boats, so technology that would make the USSR's submarines harder to detect created a significant threat to America's security. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba
This freeper's boycott is still going on.
Thanks for the explanation. My computer is extremely over qualified for my needs. But its good knowing I won’t hit any walls.
I’ll check it out, see if I can snag one under my extended warranty , they include one battery replacement on an ext. warranty package, I already swapped a power supply out..
It’s almost 3 years old and still charges fine, 100%, 2 hours would be nice tho.. heck, 1 and half would be nice.. but I just popped it out and it’s a 4 cell.. hopefully they have a 8 cell for this model, M45. Thx!
I remember going to a different site to purchase it. I think it was Amazon.
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