Rambus (RMBS)

[elixe]

Arstechnica update

Turns out there wasn’t much new information in yesterday’s presentation. He does have a good block diagram of the CELL chip.

Most interesting was his comparison to the Apple G5 chip. (Note that Apple uses an IBM 64-bit PowerPC chip).

Everything on this processor, (sic, CELL), is stripped down to the bare minimum, so don't expect a ton of VMX performance out of it, and definitely not anything comparable to the G5. Furthermore, any Altivec code written for the new G4 or G5 would have to be completely reoptimized due to in order nature of the PPC core's issue.

So the short answer is, Apple's use of this chip is within the realm of concievability, but it's extremely unlikely in the short- and medium-term. Apple is just too heavily invested in Altivec, and this processor is going to be a relative weakling in that department. Sure, it'll pack a major SIMD punch, but that will not be a double-precision Alitvec-type punch.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-2.ars

Cnet has an article on CELL.

Cell chip: Hit or hype?
By Michael Kanellos
http://news.com.com/Cell+chip+Hit+or+hype/2010-1006_3-5568046.html