Why Cell will get the hard sell

BBC NEWS | Technology: "The world is casting its gaze on the Cell processor for the first time, but what is so important about it, and why is it so different?

Traditional computers - whether they are household PCs or PlayStation 2s - use a single processor to carry out the calculations that run the computer. The Cell technology, on the other hand, uses multiple Cell processors linked together to run lots of calculations simultaneously. Using a technology called XDR, created by American firm Rambus, memory can run up to eight times faster than the current standard being promoted by Intel.

Because the processor is so different, it requires programmers to learn a different way of writing software, and it may be that the changeover is simply too difficult for them to master. "