IBM, the company behind the Cell processor - best known for its use in the PlayStation 3 but also used in servers - abandons the development of this processor. Specifically, the PowerXCell 8i is the latest model cell: the high-end version, designed for servers, offers a computing power far greater than the original cell (especially on the calculations in double precision). We do not know the exact reason for the arrest of development, but we know by IBM cons reuse may be part of the Advanced Cell in other processors.

Cell Why is it abandoned?

One reason (likely) stop Cell is that it is difficult to program and that its architecture is very special. The UPP (PowerPC) lack of power (it is based on ancient architecture) and in practice, even if the Cell is very effective when properly used, other solutions are more effective. In fact, the last report of the Top500 shows a cluster of x86 processors offer very high power and is simple to implement - even if the power of a single processor is less - and solutions such as GPGPU those offered by NVIDIA offer more power. In fact, a non-optimized program will be faster on the x86 and a simple optimized program will be faster on the GPU.

It remains to see that IBM will offer in the future: a Power8 (for example) helped by SPE could be very effective.