Guide to Cell/B.E. Programming Documentation
Version 1.0, August 2008
© 2008 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 6 of 16
Introductory Documents
CBE Programming Tutorial
Cell Broadband Engine Public Information and Downloads
190 pages.
Audience
C/C++ programmers interested in developing applications or libraries for the Cell/B.E. The document is not intended for
programmers developing device drivers, compilers, or operating systems.
Content
A short overview of the Cell/B.E. hardware organization, programming methods, programming examples, and process
of writing and debugging programs. The document assumes access to the Cell/B.E.-specific IBM software
development kit (SDK), 64-bit Linux
®
OS and standard toolset, and Full System Simulator. The examples in the tutorial
highlight the general principals required for Cell/B.E. programming, so that a programmer can apply this knowledge to
other Cell/B.E. development environments.
Recommended Use
This is a beginning tutorial, useful during initial attempts to understand the programming process.
Document Sections
The tutorial has the following sections:
1.
Overview of the Cell Broadband Engine
: A short summary of the Cell/B.E.’s hardware organization and
programming methods.
2.
The PPE and the Programming Process
: A summary of the PowerPC Processor Element (PPE), including registers,
instruction sets, communication and interoperability with SPEs, and examples of code development and
debugging on the simulator.
3.
Programming the SPEs
: A summary of the Synergistic Processor Elements (SPEs), including registers, memory
flow controller (MFC), channels, instruction and MFC-command sets, coding and code-porting examples,
performance analysis, and general programming tips.
4.
Programming Models
: Summaries of various programming models, including function offload, device extension,
computation acceleration, streaming, shared-memory multiprocessor, asymmetric-thread runtime, and user-mode
thread models. Also a short summary of application frameworks and SPE overlays.
5.
The Simulator
: A summary of the IBM Full System Simulator for the Cell Broadband Engine, including basic
functions, command-line and GUI interfaces, and performance monitoring.
Recommended Prerequisites
None.
Further Details
See:
