The infamous Cell Processor, a development of Sony, Toshiba and IBM, has long been lauded as a next-generation one-size-fits-all CPU for consoles, due to its unique and powerful architecture.
It seems that many companies will also be using the Cell in other devices as well, including Televisions, handhelds, phones, servers and more. It was never designed to be a desktop or low-power consumption processor, so seeing it fill any of those roles is going to be interesting. Years ago, Cyrix made an “all-in-one” processor called the MediaGX. It bit the dirt pretty hard because of low market reception. The Cell, similar in concept, is getting rave reviews. Both Sony and Toshiba are onboard and looking to use the CPU in their own non-console equipment. Motivations behind this range from pushing developers to adopt it to market partnerships. You can read about the uniqueness of the Cell and get an explanation of the Cell's design
here. To date, there isn't a device on the market that makes use of it. But there are many on the horizon, including the PlayStation 3.
