Microsoft Moving Into Chip Design With Xbox Next

adamsmith_uk writes "According to ZDNet, Microsoft will more actively participate in chip design for the next version of its Xbox gaming console, tentatively called Xbox Next. By switching from using relatively standard parts to more customized silicon, the company can better optimize its game console, due in 2005. At the same time, the move potentially gives the company a toehold in a completely new market."

Comments

Re:DRM

[HardCase]

I wonder how much of this is to make it harder to pirate games or run linux on the XBox?

Well, as the article said, "They sure don't want to have a situation where an Xbox can be turned into a PC."

-h-

Re:How much...

[Zeinfeld]

do they want to lose per console this time? If they use re-engineered pc parts, they stand to lose a lot.

I doubt that they intend to do quite as much as some are claiming. I suspect that all they are going to do is to integrate standard cells for the processor and graphics processor onto the same chip. Probably losing the FPU in the process and some other stuff that is not much use on a dedicated graphics machine - or at least not enough use to want to spend silicon on it.

The PC has been dancing close to the line where a PC on a chip becomes possible for some time. This has happened before of course, Inmos did it in the 1980s, but then you got 4Kb or Ram per transputer. Today you can get a CPU, Graphics processor and 2Mb of cache onto a chip without too much pain.

The costs of going custom are not that great for the production runs involved. We are talking tens of millions of chips. So the cost of some custom masks is really not that big of a problem. Microsoft hae to pay for the processor IP whether they use it as a standard cell or buy it in as a commodity.

The support chips will probably still be commodity items - but remember that there are a lot of things you just do not need on a game box that are vital for a PC, things like protected memory, virtual memory etc. They take up a lot of real estate but you don't need them in a game box.

Re:IBM of the RIng

[randyest]

I'm in a hurry, but I'll be back in a few hours if you want to debate this. But before I leave I must say:

This is not a problem for IBM, the reason being that there is no other manufacturing player in town.

Huh? NEC, LSI, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, . . . there are plenty of manufacturing players.

Once the process is decided that it it. You can't just switch to someone else.

Wrong. We port ASIC designs from competitor's processes all the time.

This means that for once in their life MS is at the mercy of someone else.

Not at all.

Screw IBM and you just free up resources for Nintendo and Sony (Assume you know that they have chosen IBM as well), and delay your own product by 1-2 years, meaning the project is pretty much dead.

Sony is making their own chips. Nintendo uses NEC.

IBM is the Ring that Rules them All.

I'm not really sure of what overall point you were shooting for, but every statement you made is false.