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Sony & Toshiba Disclose Cell Fab Plans
sean23007 writes "InfoWorld is running an article about Sony and Toshiba's plans for new fabrication plants to build the 'Cell' chip jointly developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM for use in the Playstation 3 and other home entertainment uses. The new fabs will be located in Nagasaki and Oita, and both companies plan to spend $1.7 billion over the next 3-4 years in their construction. They will be capable of using 300 mm wafers with a 65 nm process. The chip is slated to be the first 1 teraflop consumer device."
According to IGN anyhow... To quote - Online news sites are reporting that the spring 2003 issue of Electronic Design Chain, an electronics trade magazine, features PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi on the cover, and also contains very surprising news about the Playstation 3. According to the reports, Kutaragi mentions that final production of the "Cell" chip, originally thought to be used in the PlayStation 3, may not be ready until 2007. He also confirms that the CPU in the PlayStation 3 will in fact not be the Cell processor, contrary to earlier reports. With a targeted PlayStation 3 launch in 2005/2006, delayed production of the Cell processor may have caused Sony to find a different solution for their next-generation console.
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I guess this answers all of the speculative questions on when the PS3 will be able to come out. If Toshiba needs four years for its 65nm production lines, then 2007 is the earliest point that wafers could start coming off the line. So Christmas 2007? Looks like the PS2 still has a very long life ahead of it.
...the "cell" chip won't be in the PS3.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
i expect that there will be lots of sony consumer electronics (dvd players, entertainment systems) embedded with ps3 technology. scea has been fighting to keep the ps series as a game console only, but MS is forcing them to integrate the ps3 with dvd/music/internet technology...
conversely, sometimes i wonder if MS is striving to be the north american Sony (tablet pc, xbox, windows ce, keyboards, mice, etc...)
With 1 Teraflop of processing power, I hope it'll come with more than 32MB RAM this time.
Why are only Sony and Toshiba reported? Does IBM not plan to produce and Cell chips or do they already have fab facilities?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I'm sorry, but this conversation somehow went past me.
.02
Where in the article does any reference to wireless phones occur? And where in reality does a teraflop processor have its place in a phone?
The real question here for us ignorami like myself is, how will this processor stack up against PC processors- and will it run Linux?
Joking aside- and Beowulf clusters aside- this sounds like it could be a good idea for a versatile chip. If Toshiba's involved my guess is it will not be just for PS3, perhaps we'll now have another major plaer (or two) in the PC chip market? Hmm, Sony and Toshiba, leading laptop manufacturers, making their own chips. It's like Microsoft making keyboards and mice, I suppose, but perhaps better.
Just my
I used to work for Intel in the Fab automation software department and I find it hard to believe they're can justify investing this much to start up new fabrication plants for an unproven product.
Usually, with initial chip production at this scale, they lease out fab production time from other companies. Only huge production plans (like Pentiums or PowerPCs) generally justify building entire new Fabs. Plus, with the world economy slow, there's plenty of capacity at the world's fabs. Here's a good article on fab capacity
Why do I h8 apple?
They should just transcribe the Final Fantasy combat system into a hardware implementation. That's the only reason people buy these things anyway.
I propose that the limit break be implemented by some sort of register overflow.
They should do this in the Cell chips that are rumored, in the future, to be deployed in various home appliances. I, for one, would be impressed when my dryer finishes the tumble cycle and then performs a super-attack on the toaster.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
What the hell are you talking about. Even if they "open sourced" the processor, how many open source developers do you know that have access to a 65nm Fab to play around with it.
That the move to 65nm fabrication would be due to the machine that'll be running a to-be-released version of Grand Theft Auto and not some military system or huge scientific cluster ;-)
-psy
Also, I should clarify, not just cell phones, but all electronics should have better methods of recycling them. When you went out to buy that PS2, what happened with the PS died? Circuit boards have many elements that should not be in a standard landfill.
Even if this chip's architecture turns out to be a dud, they'll have plants ready to produce 65 nanometer processors. Eventually they'll have some chips running at 65 nanometers, and they'll have a fab ready to produce it. Worst case scenario is that they can sell their fab capabilities to other companies that want to run at 65 nanometers. The odds that these plants won't have a long run value seems pretty small to me.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
http://www.designchain.com/coverstory.asp?issue
And so does including memory and GPU with the CPU. You could imagine the desktop computer market for these babies.... if released with Linux.
Thinking of that, I wonder if they would allow hookup to a DVI connector, or replacing the BIOS, or adding PCI/ISA slots, or even producing whole chips for third party taiwanese boards that would then be built into workstations. If the chip is up to the spec, on time and reasonably priced, theres already a big Linux-based market for it, meself included. Saddams gotta steal only a FEW of these to build nukes. Wonder if an anarchist teen could do that with this christmas present.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky