Reports are beginning to surface which claim that Sony's PS3, the heir to the PS2 throne, architecture is obvious in a U.S. patent filed by Sony on September 26th.
The patent refers to an architecture for computer processors and computer networks and, in particular, to an architecture for computer processors and computer networks in a broadband environment.
Although the following description may go into some technical detail, it will offer a chance, to those with such a background to gain some insight as to the PS3's petential.
According to the inquirer.net, this is how the PS3 will work:
The PS3 will consist of cells, each one containing a CPU, probably a PowerPC, and eight APU's (vectorial processors) each with 128K of memory.
It will run at 4GHz, producing a staggering 256Gflops, with the cells connected to the central 64MB memory through a switched 1024bit bus.
It's still not known how many of these cells will be used in Playstation 3, but Sony hinted, a while back, that it could total as much as one teraflops, suggesting a four cell architecture.
Optical links, possibly FireWire optical links, could be used to share computing power.
The Playstation 3 architecture will be, in many respects, similar to the Playstation 2 but with considerable improvements, such as a larger number of VPU's, each with more memory. The operating system, too, is expected to be greatly improved.
Many fear that the complexity of the machine might make it extremely difficult to program for but Sony will do their best to work with developers in order to avoid such issues causing their console any problems.
You will find the link to Sony's patent here.