[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for
this link. ]
“The previous article in this series gave an overview of the
Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE) processor. (For other overviews,
see Resources at the end of this article.) Part 2 begins an
in-depth discussion of the Cell BE chip’s SPEs. (For an in-depth
discussion about programming the Power processing element (PPE),
see the Assembly language for Power Architecture series on the
developerWorks Linux zone.) Because the SPEs use such a different
architecture, it’s helpful to look at them in assembly language to
get the full feel for what is happening. Later, I will show you how
to program them in C, but assembly language gives a better view of
the distinctiveness of the processor. Then, when moving to C, you
will understand how different coding decisions might affect
performance. This article focuses on the basic syntax and usage of
SPE assembly language, and the ABI (the application binary
interface, or the function calling conventions of the platform).
The next two articles will explore communication between the SPE
and the PPE and how to use the unique features of the SPE’s
assembly language to optimize your code…”