MacRumors.com

IBM, Sony, and Toshiba officially announced the "Cell" Processor this morning. The new multicode processor has already exceeded 4GHz in lab testing and is designed to power a variety of operating systems.

Rumors of the processor have surrounded its anticipated use in the Playstation 3 from Sony. The new processor incorporates FlexIO and eXtended Data RAM (XDR) which together can offer "100 Gbytes per second of total bandwidth" -- which is expected to assist with real time graphics.

The processor is expected to be used in a wide range of systems: "as a core device sustaining a whole spectrum of advanced information-rich broadband applications, from consumer electronics, home entertainment through various industrial systems."

With IBM as a partner, the upcoming processor has drawn significant interest from Apple fans, but there appears to be no evidence of any interest in the new processor from Apple.