Zego
Encyclopedia
The ZEGO is a rackmount server platform built by Sony
, targeted for the video postproduction and broadcast
markets. The platform is based on Sony's PlayStation 3
as it features both the Cell Processor
as well as the RSX 'Reality Synthesizer'
. It is aimed to greatly speed up postproduction work (in particular in the computationally extremely taxing 4K resolution), 3D rendering
and video processing
. In some respects it is rather similar to IBM
's QS20/21/22 blades (such as used in the Roadrunner supercomputer that took the top spot in the Top500
in May 2008), although Sony seems to target the DCC (Digital Content Creation
) markets rather than scientific like IBM, which can be seen by the inclusion of the RSX graphics processor in the ZEGO platform.
ZEGO runs Fixstars
's Yellow Dog
Enterprise Linux, which was also Sony's favourite Linux distribution for the PlayStation 3.
RAM
instead of the PlayStation 3's 256 MB. Video RAM is missing in Sony's system diagrams, but it is listed as 256 MB (like the PlayStation 3) further down in the tech specs. The XDR memory is shared by both the Cell and RSX. Sony uses the SCC (Super Companion Chip) to handle I/O
tasks (HDD, USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet
and other unspecified I/O); the SCC has its own dedicated memory of 1GB DDR2
as well as a Memory Extension Adapter connected via PCI Express
that can hold up to 8 GB. Another option for the single PCI express slot is a Video Display Board with a DVI-I
output.
Furthermore it is worth mentioning that the Cell in the BCU-100 offers the full 8 SPUs that Cell is manufactured with, as opposed to the 6 SPUs available in the PlayStation 3, which has one SPU disabled to improve manufacturing yields and one reserved for the system. This gives the BCU-100 an extra 33% potential CPU-power (or 51.2 GFLOPS more).
in mid-August. Sony plans to ship the BCU-100 by the end of 2008 and deliver it with the Mental Ray
raytracer by Mental Images to speed up 3D rendering tasks and Houdini
Batch by Side Effects Software. The company claims to be in talk with other software makers in the DCC field to port and optimize their software for the ZEGO platform.
ZEGO is similar to a workstation based on the PlayStation 2
architecture called the GScube
, which was also shown at Siggraph in the year 2000, and which, although used for visualization in a few movie projects, ultimately failed in the market. However, while the GScube only targeted realtime visualization in 1080p
HD, ZEGOs target markets are much broader, encompassing for example physics simulation, final 3D rendering and video processing as well as visualization. It remains to be seen if ZEGO actually manages what the GScube was unable to do.
It is worth noting that the massively parallel design of the GScube, being not much more than 16 Graphics Synthesizer chips with dedicated RAM , inspired the design of the Cell processor itself with its 8 SPUs with dedicated RAM.
As of August 2009 the device appears to have been discontinued. Searches on Sony.com and pro.Sony.com for either Zego or bcu-100 return nothing but the year-old press release claiming the product would ship within a few months.
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, targeted for the video postproduction and broadcast
Broadcast
Broadcast or Broadcasting may refer to:* Broadcasting, the transmission of audio and video signals* Broadcast, an individual television program or radio program* Broadcast , an English electronic music band...
markets. The platform is based on Sony's PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
as it features both the Cell Processor
Cell (microprocessor)
Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM, an alliance known as "STI". The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center in Austin, Texas over a four-year period beginning March 2001 on a...
as well as the RSX 'Reality Synthesizer'
RSX 'Reality Synthesizer'
The RSX 'Reality Synthesizer' is a proprietary graphics processing unit codeveloped by Nvidia and Sony for the PlayStation 3 game console....
. It is aimed to greatly speed up postproduction work (in particular in the computationally extremely taxing 4K resolution), 3D rendering
3D rendering
3D rendering is the 3D computer graphics process of automatically converting 3D wire frame models into 2D images with 3D photorealistic effects on a computer.-Rendering methods:...
and video processing
Video processing
In electrical engineering and computer science, video processing is a particular case of signal processing, which often employs video filters and where the input and output signals are video files or video streams. Video processing techniques are used in television sets, VCRs, DVDs, video codecs,...
. In some respects it is rather similar to IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
's QS20/21/22 blades (such as used in the Roadrunner supercomputer that took the top spot in the Top500
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year...
in May 2008), although Sony seems to target the DCC (Digital Content Creation
Digital content creation
Digital Content Creation is a modern term denoting the creation and modification of digital content, such as animation, audio, graphics, images and video, as part of the production process before presentation in its final medium. This large field encompasses many segments such as 3D graphics,...
) markets rather than scientific like IBM, which can be seen by the inclusion of the RSX graphics processor in the ZEGO platform.
ZEGO runs Fixstars
Fixstars Solutions
Fixstars Solutions, Inc is a software and services company specializing in Multi-core processor, particularly in the Nvidia's GPU and CUDA environment, IBM Power7 and Cell....
's Yellow Dog
Yellow Dog Linux
Yellow Dog Linux, also known as YDL, is a free and open source operating system for high performance computing on multicore architectures. It focuses on GPU systems and computers using the Power Architecture . YDL is currently developed by Fixstars...
Enterprise Linux, which was also Sony's favourite Linux distribution for the PlayStation 3.
Architecture
The architecture is not identical to the PlayStation 3. One difference is that the BCU-100 has 1 GB XDRXDR
XDR is a three-letter acronym with multiple meanings:* XDomainRequest, AJAX-Technology* eXternal Data Representation, an implementation of the OSI model presentation layer* XDR DRAM, or extreme data rate dynamic random access memory...
RAM
Random-access memory
Random access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time. Strictly speaking, modern types of DRAM are therefore not random access, as data is read in...
instead of the PlayStation 3's 256 MB. Video RAM is missing in Sony's system diagrams, but it is listed as 256 MB (like the PlayStation 3) further down in the tech specs. The XDR memory is shared by both the Cell and RSX. Sony uses the SCC (Super Companion Chip) to handle I/O
Input/output
In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system , and the outside world, possibly a human, or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it...
tasks (HDD, USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet
Gigabit Ethernet
Gigabit Ethernet is a term describing various technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second , as defined by the IEEE 802.3-2008 standard. It came into use beginning in 1999, gradually supplanting Fast Ethernet in wired local networks where it performed...
and other unspecified I/O); the SCC has its own dedicated memory of 1GB DDR2
DDR2 SDRAM
DDR2 SDRAM is a double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory interface. It supersedes the original DDR SDRAM specification and has itself been superseded by DDR3 SDRAM...
as well as a Memory Extension Adapter connected via PCI Express
PCI Express
PCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards...
that can hold up to 8 GB. Another option for the single PCI express slot is a Video Display Board with a DVI-I
Digital Visual Interface
The Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
output.
Furthermore it is worth mentioning that the Cell in the BCU-100 offers the full 8 SPUs that Cell is manufactured with, as opposed to the 6 SPUs available in the PlayStation 3, which has one SPU disabled to improve manufacturing yields and one reserved for the system. This gives the BCU-100 an extra 33% potential CPU-power (or 51.2 GFLOPS more).
History
Sony presented its first ZEGO product, the BCU-100, to the public at Siggraph 2008SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
in mid-August. Sony plans to ship the BCU-100 by the end of 2008 and deliver it with the Mental Ray
Mental Ray
mental ray is a production-quality rendering application developed by mental images . mental images was bought in December 2007 by NVIDIA.As the name implies, it supports ray tracing to generate images....
raytracer by Mental Images to speed up 3D rendering tasks and Houdini
Houdini (software)
Houdini is a high-end 3D animation package developed by Side Effects Software which is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. It is a rewrite of the PRISMS ecosystem of standalone tools. Its chief distinction from other packages is that it has been designed as a purely procedural environment...
Batch by Side Effects Software. The company claims to be in talk with other software makers in the DCC field to port and optimize their software for the ZEGO platform.
ZEGO is similar to a workstation based on the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
architecture called the GScube
GScube
The GScube was a hardware tool released by Sony intended for use in CGI production houses consisting of a custom variant of sixteen PlayStation 2 motherboards running in parallel. It was unveiled in 2000 at SIGGRAPH; the name "GSCube" is short for Graphics Synthesizer Cube...
, which was also shown at Siggraph in the year 2000, and which, although used for visualization in a few movie projects, ultimately failed in the market. However, while the GScube only targeted realtime visualization in 1080p
1080p
1080p is the shorthand identification for a set of HDTV high-definition video modes that are characterized by 1080 horizontal lines of resolution and progressive scan, meaning the image is not interlaced as is the case with the 1080i display standard....
HD, ZEGOs target markets are much broader, encompassing for example physics simulation, final 3D rendering and video processing as well as visualization. It remains to be seen if ZEGO actually manages what the GScube was unable to do.
It is worth noting that the massively parallel design of the GScube, being not much more than 16 Graphics Synthesizer chips with dedicated RAM , inspired the design of the Cell processor itself with its 8 SPUs with dedicated RAM.
As of August 2009 the device appears to have been discontinued. Searches on Sony.com and pro.Sony.com for either Zego or bcu-100 return nothing but the year-old press release claiming the product would ship within a few months.
BCU-100
- 1U rackmount unit
- 3.2 GHz Cell/B.E. CPU
- RSX (connected to Cell via a 20 GByte/s up- and 15 Gbyte/s downstream link)
- SCC (connected to Cell via a 5 GByte/s link)
- 1GB XDR RAM with ECC (Cell and RSX, 25,6 GByte/s Bandwidth)
- 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (SCC)
- 2x Gigabit Ethernet
- 3x USB 2.0
- 1x PCI Express 4-lane (hosts either the Memory Extension Adapter or the Video Display Board)
- 160 GB 3.5" SATASataSata is a traditional dish from the Malaysian state of Terengganu, consisting of spiced fish meat wrapped in banana leaves and cooked on a grill.It is a type of Malaysian fish cake, or otak-otak...
harddrive - <330 WattWattThe watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
s power consumption - optional BDCU-EX1 Memory Extension Adapter with 8GB RAM
- optional BKCU-VD1 Video Display Board with DVI-I (for using the BCU-100 as a Workstation)