Sony Plans Smaller PS2 Chip, Cell Manufacturing

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.

Comments

Re:Steps to the PSP...

[Black Hitler]

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?

Re:Steps to the PSP...

[PainKilleR-CE]

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.