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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games Hardware

Sony Plans Smaller PS2 Chip, Cell Manufacturing 26

Posted by simoniker from the ramping-up-for-infinitely-small dept.
Thanks to Reuters for their story discussing Sony's plans to start mass production on a smaller PlayStation 2 chip. The new chip is "using cutting-edge 90-nanometer processing technology", and monthly production of the chip, which is functionally identical, and "...combines the game console's microprocessor and graphics chip, will start at 'several' hundred thousand units before growing to more than a million units by next year." They also plan to start a test plant for their next-gen Cell processor, widely rumored as the basis for the PlayStation 3, and the Sony plants are "...expected to start mass production of 'Cell' in the second-half of 2005", hopefully far enough ahead of time to avoid the chip shortages that plagued the PS2 launch.
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Sony Plans Smaller PS2 Chip, Cell Manufacturing More

Sony Plans Smaller PS2 Chip, Cell Manufacturing

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  • Steps to the PSP... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by H0NGK0NGPH00EY ( 210370 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @02:16PM (#7165690) Homepage
    Sounds like there may be something to their claims that the PSP will have the power of a PS2, after all. I would say that combining the microprocessor and graphics chip into one smaller chip is a pretty good step toward fitting the whole thing into a handheld device, yes?
    • True. And with that much power in one little PSP, sounds like it will double as an electric hand warmer.

    • Re:Steps to the PSP... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by addaon ( 41825 )
      There's something even more important, though. Originally, the PS1 (PSX has become an overloaded term) was a typical system; a bunch of chips tied together on a circuit board. Over the lifetime of the system they reduced the component count significantly; the final revision of the PS1 had the entire system (well, except for standard external stuff) on a single chip.

      This was nice; it let Sony cut down the console costs and increase the profit margin. But it allowed something even better. It allowed Sony to
      • Hmm.......not too long ago Sony put out a call for emulator programmers. It was generally assumed that the PS3 was going to emulate the PS2, rather than including a miniaturized PS2 onboard. Maybe they decided emulation was more trouble than it was worth?
        • I'm not sure they've decided yet, but I suspect they'll decide, based on fab costs of the 1-chip PS2, pretty soon... before investing all too much in an emulator.
      • Note, though, that they stated only the microprocessor and graphics processor have been combined. This excepts the I/O chip, which is the part that acts as a PS1.

        Actually, they announced the combining of the CPU and GPU a few months ago, but now they're doing it with the '90-nanometer' technology, meaning it will be even smaller.

        The combination of the PS2 chips is also part of what lead to rumours that the PS3 may not do PS1 compatibility, though that still hasn't been confirmed or denied.

  • Why not 0.13um???? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pagercam2 ( 533686 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @04:18PM (#7166175)
    Going to smaller geometries is a standard tactic, so this is surprising but the more supprising that they intend to skip 0.13um which is still leading edge, .09um is still pretty risky and expensive. 0.13um would have cut the die size in half, while .09 reduces by 75% which is better but the reliability of .09 and the extra effort to go to the latest process when you need 20 million parts/year this sounds like a major risk that shouldn't be allowed to limit the move of the PS2 marketing push. I find it somewhat strange that "Cell" is getting so much press and interest, nobody has built a chip at .065um yet and this may take years if they can fit 8 processors at 65nm they should be prototyping 4-6 processors at .09 or 2-4 at .13. The cell seems to be more of a marketing ploy rather that real technology or atleast that all thats getting out. Does a game system need 1 trillion ops/sec???? for game play? A workstation with this capability would make a lot more money, your own nuclear resarch on PS3????
    • Does a game system need 1 trillion ops/sec???? for game play?

      Yes! Okay, not for Tetris, but many games try to render realistic-looking scenes and characters, a goal that's severely hampered by a lack of processing power.

      And even leaving aside graphics, more CPU power means more capacity for advanced AI or more detailed, accurate simulation of real-world things like cars and planes and weapons.

  • Whats so new about the Cell processor? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @04:36PM (#7166382) Homepage
    I have seen so much hype and no numbers. So what if each Cell is an overclocked ARM7TDMI and they use 16 of them in the box? I am more interested in how the memory is connected to each of the cells (northbridge), the memory specs (surely not the PC133), and how much of the OpenGL pipeline is offloaded further from the GPU to the chips. This is after all what they claim theyre doing.

    I've seen dual and quad ARM cores in one chip, seen a simple GPU with an ARM in one chip and an ARM chip with a large FPGA on board. These are real production objects being used in cell phones and the likes. Everyone knows a dual Pentium2 500MHz doesnt necessarily beat a single Pentium3 at 1GHz, so how does this translate into cool gaming?
  • "...combines the game console's microprocessor and graphics chip, will start at 'several' hundred thousand units before growing to more than a million units by next year."

    That's a lot of units for a console that's reaching the beginning of the end. Most people who own PS2s already have one. I doubt that they'll be able to move that many chips.

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 08, 2003 @05:26PM (#7166837)
      Most people who own PS2s already have one.

      Wow.

      I...

      Wow.
    • Don't forget the PSX. If they're expecting decent sales of the unit they'll need quite a few more chips than they're producing now. They're also still selling quite a bit more than 2 million PS2s a year (1,707,000 in Japan alone in 2003 through the first week of last month). Who knows what they're really planning to do with these smaller chips, though, as they're obviously not ramping up production to put out more of the current package, unless they plan on revamping the PS2's package once they get producti
  • Sony pushed the limits when they tried using 0.25um tech to make the first huge 300mm^2 PS2 chips and the result was massive shortages that lasted for almost a year until they transferred to 0.18um. Now perhaps in trying to keep die size down, they will run into the problem that Intel has...

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