SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DATA SYNCHRONIZATION FOR A COMPUTER
not sure if this has anything to do with the PS4 but this Sony patent is using a lot of APU's in what looks like a online sever reminds me of the severs using PS3's
Great find, it ties everything together.
The patent is for a Java Model (Virtual machine) - Cell and APU hardware implementation allowing the "Cell Vision" of sharing processor, memory and data over broadband network (Internet and wireless) with a common ISA instruction set.
This is the AMD HSA IL (JIT Virtual machine) which "Scales from Handheld to Supercomputer".
The date in the patent is Dec 8, 2011, it starts with Cell in PDAs (1 cell personal handheld devices like cell phones and Tablets), TVs 4 cell...you get the point, as many cell processors (CPU + SPU) as needed by the device and goes on to
use Cell and APU as equivalent building blocks Cell=APU=(CPU + GPGPU)=(CPU + SPU).
The Dec 8, 2011 date is important! The first picture with Cell in everything is the original vision with Cell still planned for advanced CE devices displaying 4K (TV and high end 4K blu-ray).
Cell is in the Toshiba 4K TV and it does have features not possible without Cell.
Toshiba PDF mentioning the reason for the Cell (power wall, Frequency wall) and applies to Heterogeneous Cell as well as Fusion APU. Also 1 SPU = 16 Intel core Duo X86 processors for single precision FLOPs in 2008.
SPURS engine (4SPUs) designed to be included in platforms with other processors like X86 (Face Recognition, Media codec, Gesture recognition and more). This is now or will soon be provided by GPGPUs in platforms with GPUs. Platforms that need this power but don't need GPUs will probably use Cell (4K TV, 4K Blu-Ray). PDF also mentions clusters of cell over network to share processing, POSIX etc. This is a 2008 "Cell Vision" and the 2011 Sony patent is a later "cell vision" also including a Virtual engine like PS Suite's Mono.
You can reuse your application and library running on SPE across all Cell family processor. All your efforts on one platform are preserved on other platforms.
Please quit “reinvention of the wheel”
Please join us to create common environment
Please stop developing environment, but feedback to common environment instead
Please focus on your actual applications
Please look forward to enjoying compatibility
Firstly, write your code using PS3 or CRS(Toshiba’s Cell Reference Set)
Then, scale up to high performance computing world using QS22 or later blades without any modification
And, make available to PC users using SpursEngine!
Sony created a group to develop and promote DLNA (2000) to share media over the home network. This is being expanded to RVU which is Remote Viewing and control of DVR boxes. DLNA includes discovery and Plug and Play which was developed by the DLNA group. A next generation game console following this vision will need DLNA, RVU and multiple low power standby modes always listening to the Network port; the AMD Fusion SOC chipset provides these as well as the 2011 "Cell vision".
That AMD is including this in all AMD Full HSA Fusion APUs (2013 and later) means the PS4 and future PCs (at least AMD) will be able to share application code and data transparently. I don't know how far this will be taken......
it's possible to have the same applications run on PS4 and AMD PCs because of the HSA IL virtual machine. The OS (Microsoft Windows 8? or a simplified Linux with PS3 Linux kernel released at the same time as the PS4 Linux supporting the HSA IL virtual machine?) would have to support this and this is possibly another reason for the domain name registration microsoft-sony.com and sony-microsoft.com. I suspect this will be fleshed out more at the June AMD developers conference and might be hinted by Sony at E3. Will this if properly explained to the consumer impact buying a PS4 over a WiiU. Is the next Xbox supporting this?
Will PS Suite be tied into this at some point in the future (announced one month after the above patent)? OpenCL and HSA IL? The PS3 application side is evolving toward a Gnome Mobile Webkit desktop at least as far as functionality and could support a HSA IL virtual machine.
Read posts here especially 4th down.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5847/answered-by-the-experts-heterogeneous-and-gpu-compute-with-amds-manju-hegde/3 said:
AMD is addressing this via HSA. HSA addresses these fundamental points by introducing an intermediate layer (HSAIL) that insulates software stacks from the individual ISAs. This is a fundamental enabler to the convergence of SW stacks on top of HC.
Unless the install base is large enough, the investment to port *all* standard languages across to an ISA is forbiddingly large. Individual companies like AMD are motivated but can only target a few languages at a time. And the software community is not motivated if the install base is fragmented. HSA breaks this deadlock by providing a "virtual ISA" in the form of HSAIL that unifies the view of HW platforms for SW developers. It is important to note that this is not just about functionality but preserves performance sufficiently to make the SW stack truly portable across HSA platforms
This starts with AMD 2013 HSA Fusion APUs and the PS4 SOC should be a 2014 design. Speculation but fits Sony & Toshiba goals for Cell and explains Sony going with a AMD fusion APU as the vision is identical and AMD has done the work. Both AMD and Sony need this to succeed. My opinion is Sony is going to concentrate on software and AMD on hardware including hand-helds.....partnership that hasn't been announced yet? AMD/Global foundries is part of the low power ultrawide memory I/O standards group =>handheld memory. <grin> best choice in a AMD HSA Fusion SOC for handhelds.