Sony Considers Outsourcing Cell Production

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @05:58AM from the get-on-up-get-on-out dept.

Gamasutra reports on comments from the Sony home office, where executives are considering plans to outsource production of the expensive/complicated Cell chips that power the PS3. Executive deputy president Yutaka Nakagawa is quoted in a Reuters report, saying that when the PS2 launched there just weren't other companies to turn to. With the chip market better-developed in 2007, there are third parties Sony is now considering to take on the task of advancing/producing the Cell. Outsourcing could also help financially with their beleaguered semiconductor division. The next move for the Cell is to 45 nanometer manufacturing, from the 90/65 the company is currently using. This scale change could not only help with profits, but may eventually make dropping the price on the PlayStation 3 an easier pill to swallow.

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The real sucess by GiovanniZero · 2007-02-14 06:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

It remains to be seen whether or not the PS3 will catch on or not but the really success for sony may be the cell processor it self. It's been seeing use out side of gaming almost as much as it has in.
Wouldn't it be funny if Sony became a direct competitor to Intel and AMD? Next gen PCs could run on cell processors!
I don't really care as long as something gets us out of the x86 rut.

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