IBM said it will target products that rely heavily on imaging, such as aerospace, defense, industrial and medical applications.

The Cell processor, jointly developed by IBM, Toshiba and Sony, is a new chip architecture featuring eight synergistic processors and a Power architecture-based core. According to an announcement made jointly by the three companies in February, it has been clocked at speeds of greater than 4 GHz during testing.

According to IBM, Cell can boost the performance of applications and board-level products aimed at consumer digital media areas, as well as government laboratories, digital security, higher education and deep computing.

Customers using IBM's Cell design services will be able to access a Cell software simulation environment through IBM's Deep Computing Capacity on Demand Center (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.).

IBM said its Cell design services will include system architecture and design; chip, module and board development; expanded blade server design; power, mechanical, electrical, thermal system architecture and design; firmware and Linux driver development; worldwide regulatory and agency industry standards testing; interoperability and compatibility testing.