Toshiba brings Cell architecture to laptops

Posted at: 4:46pm 18th June 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

New Quad Core HD Processor in Qosmio laptops can encode and decode H.264 and MPEG-2 video, and recognise hand gestures via a camera

So far, Toshiba, IBM and Sony’s Cell architecture is most famous for powering the heart of the PlayStation 3. However, Toshiba has now just announced that it’s using a quad-core variant of the architecture in its new range of Qosmio laptops.

Called the Quad Core HD Processor, the chip features four 1.5GHz 128-bit SIMD RISC processors, and is designed to take the burden of video processing away from your CPU. The chip is capable of encoding and decoding H.264 and MPEG-2 video streams in hardware.

As well as processing standard HD video streams in hardware, the chip also can also upscale  DVD-resolution videos into HD-resolution in real-time. According to Toshiba, when used with Toshiba’s software, the chip can also support hand gesture control via a camera in the laptop, which can control video control features such as Play and Pause.

Thomas Teckentrup, general manager of Toshiba’s computer system division in Europe, explained the need for the chip, saying that ‘processing the large amount of HD video data efficiently requires dedicated performance beyond conventional laptop resources.’ He also added that the ‘Toshiba Quad Core HD Processor removes this issue for users and allows for smooth handling and creation of HD content, even when working with multiple applications simultaneously.’

The chip will be used in Toshiba’s forthcoming Qosmio F50 and G50 laptops, which are scheduled to be launched in Europe in the third quarter of 2008. The laptops will feature an 18.4in screen, and will be specifically aimed at media playback.

However, Toshiba has also announced the Qosmio X300; a new laptop that will be purely targeted at gamers. The X300 will feature what Toshiba calls a ‘Fire Shark’ design, with a distinctive red paintjob, and it has some very high specs for a laptop too. The spec list includes a Core 2 Duo Extreme CPU, SLI graphics and two hard drives, as well as Harmon Kardon speakers and a subwoofer.