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SPE Schmoo Plot
Figure 7 – Schmoo plot for the SPE
Figure 7 shows the schmoo plot for the SPE. The schmoo plot shows that the SPE can comfortably operate at a frequency of 4 GHz with Vdd of 1.1 V, consuming approximately 4 W. The schmoo plot also reveals that due to the careful segmentation of signal path lengths, the design is far from being wire delay limited. Frequency scaling relative to voltage continues past 1.3 V. This schmoo plot also contributes to the plausibility of the unconfirmed report that the CELL processor could operate at upwards of 5.6 GHz.
“Unknown” Functional Units: ATO and RTB
Oftentimes when a paper relating to a complex project is written collaboratively by a group of people, details are lost. Still, it appeared as rather humorous that of the six design engineers and architects from the CELL processor project present at Tuesday evening’s chat session, no one could recall what the acronyms ATO and RTB stood for. ATO and RTB are functional blocks labeled in the floorplan of the SPE. However, the functionality of these functional blocks or the meaning of the acronym were neither noted on the floorplan, nor explained in the paper, nor mentioned in the technical presentation. In an effort to cover all the corners, this author placed the question on a list of questions to be asked of the CELL project team members. Hilarity thus ensued as slightly embarrassed CELL project members stared blankly at each other in an attempt to recall the functionality or definition of the acronyms.
In all fairness, since the SPE was presented on Monday and the CELL processor itself was presented on Tuesday, CELL project members responsible for the SPE were not present for Tuesday evening’s chat sessions. As a result, the team members responsible for the overall CELL processor and internal system interconnects were asked to recall the meaning of acronyms of internal functional units within the SPE. Hence, the task was unnecessarily complicated by the absence of key personnel that would have been able to provide the answer faster than the CELL processor can rotate a million triangles by 12 degrees about the Z axis.
After some discussion (and more wine), it was determined that the ATO unit is most likely the Atomic (memory) unit responsible for coherency observation/interaction with dataflow on the EIB. Then, after the injection of more liquid refreshments (CH3CH2OH), it was theorized that the RTB most likely stood for some sort of Register Translation Block whose precise functionality was unknown to those outside of the SPE. However, this theory would turn out to be incorrect.
Finally, after sufficient numbers of hydrocarbon bonds have been broken down into H-OH on Wednesday, a member of the CELL processor team member tracked down the relevant information and he writes:
The R in RTB is an internal 1 character identifier that denotes that the RTB block is a unit in the SPE. The TB in RTB stands for “Test Block”. It contains the ABIST (Array Built In Self Test) engines for the Local Store and other arrays in the SPE, as well as other test related control functions for the SPE.
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