Specialty Engines

The dedicated Vega processors match a broader trend towards CPUs highly optimized for specific workloads. With its Specialty Engines IBM is doing a similar thing for its mainframes. The IFL (Integrated Facility for Linux), the zAAP (System z Application Assist Processor), and the zIIP (System z9 Integrated Information Processor) are exclusively running Linux, Java, and data workloads, respectively.
The same goes for the games consoles. The Sony PlayStation 3, the Microsoft Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Wii console are powered by the Cell Broadband Engine, the Xenon CPU (manufactured by the Chartered foundry), and the Broadway CPU, respectively, all based on the IBM Power processor architecture.
In the future Intel will come with specialized variants of its Itanium processor too.

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