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Cell Hits 45nm, PS3 Price Drop Likely to Follow
Septimus writes "At this weeks ISSCC, IBM announced that the Cell CPU used in the PlayStation 3 will soon make the transition to IBM's next-gen 45nm high-k process. 'The 45nm Cell will use about 40 percent less power than its 65nm predecessor, and its die area will be reduced by 34 percent. The greatly reduced power budget will cut down on the amount of active cooling required by the console, which in turn will make it cheaper to produce and more reliable (this means fewer warrantied returns). Also affecting Sony's per-unit cost is the reduction in overall die size. A smaller die means a smaller, cheaper package; it also means that yields will be better and that each chip will cost less overall.'"
This would be a great thing if they allow PS3/Linux users to access 7 of 8 SPUs instead of only six.
Otherwise, it's nice but not that big a deal...
This fits in well with the rumors of a slim version of the PS3 in the works. See here for more details.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
The article mentions the cost savings to Sony (maybe they'll be passed on to the consumer...two or three years from now), but the real kicker is at the bottom where IBM apparently had to maintain cycle compatibility with the old chip to make sure they don't break any games. They didn't use the die shrink to optimize or enhance any parts of the chip like you normally would. The supercomputer folks might end up losing out a bit in an effort to keep the game console folks happy.
I read the internet for the articles.
It would be really great that they are moving to a smaller process, (/me takes deep breath)
IF THEY WOULD SELL YOU THE DAMN THINGS!
Where I work, we approached them to try to buy Cell processors for our equipment: the SPUs would make dandy DSP replacements, and we really could use the closer coupling of the processors instead of having a bunch of DSPs and spending all our time schlepping data around.
IBM wouldn't sell us any modules, wouldn't let us design our own CPU board, nothing. They seem supremely uninterested in actually getting these out into the hands of anybody other than their own divisions and Sony.
HEY IBM! How about you guys release these in a MicroTCA formfactor, or as a module that can be integrated into a MicroTCA?
www.eFax.com are spammers
If' they're dropping cooling components due to lower heat output, I wonder if that means this picture is for real.
Standard desktop OSs and applications do not yet really take much advantage of parallel processing. Once you get past 2 or 4 CPUs/cores there won't be any drastic speed improvements until individual applications are written for parallel processing.
Developers: We can use your help.
Last I heard, Sony was still losing a ton of money on every PS3 they sold. So even if this upgrade makes it significantly cheaper to manufacture PS3s, I don't see why that would lead to a drop in retail price.
If anything, I'd guess Sony wants to keep the PS3 at its current price, now that they've basically won the next-gen DVD skirmish. Plenty of people who want Blu-Ray players probably already see the PS3 as a good choice (just like I bought a PS2 to play DVDs back in the days of yore).
Let's get realistic. Yes, the XBox360 is still beating the PS3, but they're no longer selling twice as many per month, and there are still millions of PS3s out there. And who buys games new anymore? You can get plenty of great used games at any of your mall stores these days.
The place where I think Sony screwed up is in limiting backwards compatibility with the PS2 games. New PS2 games are STILL coming out, and the PS2 is still selling very well. Sony could capitalize on that better if they'd kept backwards compatibility.
A $300 console with one controller and no games could probably sell pretty well if it could play most popular PS2 games.
E pluribus unum