iirc, Cell architecture was FPUs with a stack swapper. I.e. using scheduling to maximize use of limited FPUs on a large amount of memory. The main innovation

iirc, Cell architecture was FPUs with a stack swapper. I.e. using scheduling to maximize use of limited FPUs on a large amount of memory. The main innovation here is a tightly coupled cpu and gpu memory space. Prior to this, CPU and GPU mem were separate. To get data into the GPU (and out), it had to be shoved under the door via DMA. To maximize this, some Cell-like scheduling could be used.... But now, CPU and GPU share the same memory. e.g. malloc(1<<20) and either GPU or CPU can work on that buffer! No crazy scheduling needed. Also, the cache can be configed so both CPU and GPU access share it.