SpursEngine is a microprocessor from Toshiba built as a media oriented coprocessor, designed for 3D- and video processing in consumer electronics such as set-top boxes and computers. The SpursEngine processor is also known as the Quad Core HD processor. It was announced on September 20, 2007.[1]
The SpursEngine is a stream processor powered by four Synergistic Processing Elements (SPE),[2] also used in the Cell processor featured in Sony PlayStation 3. These processing elements are fed by on chip H.264 and MPEG-2 codecs and controlled by an off die host CPU, connected by an on chip PCIe controller[2] (in contrast to the Cell processor which has an on chip CPU (the PPE) doing similar work). To enable smoother interaction between the host and the SpursEngine Toshiba also integrated a simple proprietary 32-bit control core. The SpursEngine employs dedicated XDR DRAM as its working memory.[2]
The SpursEngine is designed to work at much lower frequencies than the Cell and Toshiba has also optimized the circuit layout of the SPEs to reduce the size by 30%.[3] The resulting chip consumes 10-20 W of power.
The SpursEngine is accessible to the developer from a device driver developed for Windows and Linux systems. Software supporting the SpursEngine is limited and is primarily in the realm of video editing and encoding.[4]
Technical specification
edit
The first generation of SpursEngine processors are specified as follows:
- Built with a 65 nm bulk CMOS fabrication process with 7 layers of copper interconnect[2]
- 9.98 mm × 10.31 mm (102.89 mm²) large die[2]
- 239.1 million transistors (Logic: 134 M, SRAM:104.8 M)[2]
- Thermal design power: <20 W[2]
- Max frequency: 1.5 GHz[2]
- Packaged in a 624 pin FC-BGA (Flip Chip-Ball Grid Array)[2]
- 48 GFLOPS peak performance (12 GFLOPS per SPU @ 1.5 GHz)[5]
Commercialization
editIn April 2008 Toshiba shipped samples of the SpursEngine SE1000 device, a PCIe-based reference board.[5]
- The accelerator card connects to a 1x PCI Express bus and has 128 MB XDR DRAM with 12.8 GB/s bandwidth.
- Leadtek is producing the WinFast PxVC1100 and HPVC1100, internal and external PCIe accelerators based on the SE1000 platform.[6][7][8]
- Thomson-Canopus has announced the Firecoder Blu, a PCIe accelerator based on the SE1000 platform.[9]
Toshiba included the SpursEngine processors in their Qosmio laptops, models F50, G50 and G55, in the third quarter of 2008.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "New Toshiba SpursEngine based on CELL". I4U News. 2007-09-20. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "SpursEngine – Architecture Overview & Implementation" (PDF). Toshiba. 2008-10-09. Retrieved 2009-11-14. [dead link]
- ^ "How Far has Cell DNA been Passed On? Interview with Toshiba SpursEngine Developer". Tech-On! Nikkei Business Publications. 2007-10-17. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
- ^ "Toshiba to make SpursEngine an open platform - SDK to be released for free and multiple SpursEngine cards to run in parallel". hdpro.jp HD Processing Forum. 2008-12-23. Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^ a b "Toshiba starts sample shipping of SpursEngine SE1000 high-performance stream processor". Toshiba. 2008-04-08. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
- ^ TechPowerUp.com
- ^ Custompc.co.uk Archived October 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Akihabaranews.com Archived September 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Thomson-canopus.jp Archived December 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
