Sony VERSION 1.0 Recommended Order of Reading Cell/B.E. Documents

Guide to Cell/B.E. Programming Documentation
Version 1.0, August 2008 © 2008 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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The PPE (Figure 1 and Figure 2) is a general-purpose, 64-bit PowerPC RISC processor that runs the operating
system(s) for all applications and external interfaces on the Cell/B.E. It operates on scalars or vectors containing 8- to
64-bit fixed-point or single- or double-precision floating-point data types.
Each of the eight SPEs (Figure 1 and Figure 2) is a 128-bit RISC processor that executes the SPU instruction set,
which is designed for data-rich single-instruction, multiple data (SIMD) and scalar applications. It operates on scalars or
vectors containing 8- to 128-bit fixed-point or single- or double-precision floating-point data types. An SPE consists of
two main units – the SPU, which executes instructions, and the MFC, which controls DMA transfers and related
functions. In general, the term “SPU” refers to the instruction-execution unit, and the term “SPE” refers to either or both
of the SPU and MFC. However, some documents use the terms “SPU” and “SPE” interchangeably.
Recommended Order of Reading Cell/B.E. Documents
Figure 3, “Recommended Order of Reading” illustrates the documents described in this guide and the recommended
reading order. An appendix lists some public websites for Cell/B.E. and PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3) programmers.
Programmers writing code only for the PPE do not need to read the SPE documents, and programmers writing code
only for the SPEs do not need to read the PPE documents.
Figure 3 Recommended Order of Reading