Sony ready to spend big on PS3 technology

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From Gamespot:

SCE readies "cell" chip plants, says it will begin production earlier than previously stated.

TOKYO--Sony announced today that it will be investing 120 billion yen ($1.14 billion) towards prepping production facilities to mass produce its next-generation microprocessor. This will be their second capital investment allocated toward these facilities, following a substantial investment made last year.

Almost half of the investment will be spent on Sony Computer Entertainment's production line in Nagasaki, Japan. The factory is dedicated to creating chips such as the "cell" chip, which adopt a 65-nanometer processing technology on 300-millimeter silicon wafers. About $340 million will be invested in IBM's factory located in New York. That factory will be dedicated to the same microprocessor production as SCE's line in Japan. Known to be the microprocessor chip that Sony intends to use in the next PlayStation iteration, the "cell" chip and attendant technology has been under development by Sony, IBM, and Toshiba since the spring of 2001.

The remaining $290 million will be spent on building a new plant in Oita, Japan. Unlike the other two plants that are mainly focused in creating the "cell" chip, this plant, adjacent to an existing Toshiba operation, will be dedicated towards creating 65-nanometer system chips with embedded DRAM that Toshiba and Sony developed in 2002 to delivers high-performance in broadband data processing.

The three manufacturing plants are scheduled to have a total production capacity of 15,000 chips per month. While the companies originally announced that production would begin in late 2005, the schedule has been pushed forward to early 2005.
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Beat me to it. Here is what Game Watch had.

< Watch article search >
SONY and SCEJ and "CELL" and so on 65nm semiconductor
Investing approximately 1,200 hundred million Yen on production facilities
February 2nd announcement
It announced that the SONY corporation and corporation SONY computer entertainment (SCEJ), in order that wafer diameter 300mm, mass production system of the semiconductor which corresponds to 65nm process is constructed, it continues to approximately 730 hundred million Yen 2003 and it invests approximately 1,200 hundred million Yen as a 2nd period.
As for execution of 2nd period investment, those in order to assure the expansion of the production facilities which is directed to the mass production of the semiconductor. As for object of investment, SCEJ "SCE Fab2 1F clean room (Nagasaki: Approximately 530 hundred million Yen)"," yeast fish kill factory of IBM corporation (the United States: Approximately 360 hundred million Yen)"," inside corporation Toshiba Toshiba Nagasaki factory new buildings (approximately 310 hundred million Yen)"3 places. As for Toshiba, vis-a-vis the new buildings as the SONY group the schedule which invests approximately 310 hundred million Yen of the same amount.
Depending upon the latest investment, the result of engineering development it becomes possible, to verify under the environment which is equal to when mass-producing have assumed that "CELL" and so on you aim toward the smooth construction of the mass production system which is directed to the completion of the development design of the next generation semiconductor. As for test work start of 2005 first half as goal should have been designated, anticipates the productivity monthly output approximately 15,000 at 3 places.
□SONY home page
Http: //www.sony.co.jp/
Home page of □SONY computer entertainment
Http: //www.scei.co.jp/
□news release
Http: //www.sony.co.jp/Welcome/PressTopJ_2004020201.html
□-related information
< January 28th > Announcing the balancing of accounts of SONY and 2003 3rd quarter. As for gross sales of game section prior-term ratio -4.5%
Http: //www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20040128/sony.htm
< 2002 September 21st > The Hisashi of SCEI 夛 well wooden health president keynote presentation - IBM, is in the midst of cooperation developing with Toshiba with the TGS forum, as for "Cell" the network processor
Http: //www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20020921/tgsf.htm
(2004 February 2nd)
[ Takakazu Reported by Kitamura ]
GAME Watch home page
We have not received the question regarding Q&A and the capture etc. of the game
In addition, with non permission of the photograph and the composition which are published to the 弊 magazine in regard to reprinting and using we refuse altogether
ウォッチ編集部内GAME Watch担å½"game-watch@impress.co.jp

Copyright (c) 2004 Impress Corporation All rights reserved.
 
Hopefully, this Cell chip will have more substance than the 'Emotion Engine'.
 
100GHz? Yeah right.

I'd say the PS3 will clock in at 2 to 5 GHz.
 
Originally posted by Viper Zero
100GHz? Yeah right.

I'd say the PS3 will clock in at 2 to 5 GHz.
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i think your right Viper Zero....do we have the technology for 100GHz processors yet? i doubt it...

i know that the Japanese have transistors that operate in the 100s of terahertz range but they are purely ptototypes and are very far off intergrating them onto a silicon wafer..

what will make the new 'cell' processors faster will be its bandwith...compared with the current XBOX 700MHz 32 bit data and memory busses the emotion Engine had 300MHz but a MASSIVE 128 bit address lines making data processing amazingly fast for such a slow clock speed.

now, if there upping the clock speed into 3Mhz or so with a data bus of 128 or even 256 it will be 8 times faster (approx) than the latest P4 that we have now...at the same clock speed....and all that power dedicated to gaming alone.....it should be awesome.

any news on what size of Ram we'll get in it?....only 32Mb in the PS2...i supose it wont require a great deal.
 
Originally posted by TurboSmoke

what will make the new 'cell' processors faster will be its bandwith...compared with the current XBOX 700MHz 32 bit data and memory busses the emotion Engine had 300MHz but a MASSIVE 128 bit address lines making data processing amazingly fast for such a slow clock speed.
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yeah this is because the XBOX was based off of a PC, and the PS2 was a system developed from scratch. still dont understand the 32MB ram though?, even at the time it wasnt that great, theyre exuse was its RAMBUS........who cares:rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by VIPERGTSR01
still dont understand the 32MB ram though?, even at the time it wasnt that great, theyre exuse was its RAMBUS........who cares:rolleyes:
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well, the video system doesnt require much ram, if any because its sending the data via a UHF to the television, it isnt sending and recieving data the way it would with a PC monitor.

as for system ram....i guess it just includes instructions and addresses that relate to data on the dvd rom....otherwise i cant see why system performance is so good with only 32Mb....perhaps someone has the answer...
 
wow, can't wait to see waht the new PS3 will be capable of....

I have a feeling that this new performance boost in the PS3 will cause game developers to work extra hard...which would mean that good games will be released to the market at a much much slower rate...
 
Originally posted by codered_59
wow, can't wait to see waht the new PS3 will be capable of....

I have a feeling that this new performance boost in the PS3 will cause game developers to work extra hard...which would mean that good games will be released to the market at a much much slower rate...
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I don't. Sony knows that game developers didn't use the PS2s full potential, and they're making sure this dosen't happen again. Sony made the PS3s software lanuage known to several game developers already over a year ago. And, at E3 2003, Sony gave several more game developer kits to several more game developers. Not only that, but Sony also wrote a couple of software "engines" for game developers to use, just to speed up the process. It would make sense to me that Sony should write a couple more engine types, that pushes the PS3s limits, and sell them to future game developers.
 
Originally posted by Klostrophobic


3 years ago did you think we would have 4 GHz processors?
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yes.

100Ghz isnt far fetched...your right....but not commercially available in the next 12 months...

maybe 5 years?

one thing that you have to worry about with frequencies in the high GigaHz range is that very soon your PC will turn into a microwave oven...dont laugh, one of the greatest challenges in making transistors this fast is how to stop radiation at the microwave wavelength from leaking into the atmoshpere...

how to stop capacitance leaks and resistance in copper tracks....to operate effectively at this speed we will have to make radical changes to our motheboards....perhaps change from copper to a purely optical system where resistance and power loss and capacitance isnt an issue....operating one transistor at 100 terahertz actually happens right NOW but integrating 10,000,000 on a silicon wafer .01 of a millimeter thick is some time off yet....

are you gonna say in 10 years that who would have though this ten years ago?
 
I recall several years ago, when I was in the junior years of high school that in a computer course I was taking, we were discussing processors and possibilities of technological change

That was about 4~5 years ago, and during those classes, there were articles and we discussed the possibilities of using organic elements/materials to manufacture computer components, mainly the microprocessor. It had already been theorized that the use of organic material can boost the speed and performance of microprocessors by insane amounts...

with these ideas in the expert's minds all the way back then, I wouldn't be surprised if they come out with 100GHz chips or what not....I'm totally looking forward to it, whether it fails or succeeds....
 
IIRC The problems with very high speeds are 1. The frequency of the wave of the electricity - you don't want microwaves.
2. The heat given off. You don't want to melt chips.

There are two competeing technologies in terms of 'the next big thing' - diamond based processors and carbon nanotubes.

Do a google search.

X-Box will also be using CELL (IBM will be rolling in it when the new consoles are released) at 5Ghz from memory.
 
Originally posted by Glut


X-Box will also be using CELL (IBM will be rolling in it when the new consoles are released) at 5Ghz from memory.
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what? i thought the next xbox had it's own thing? also developed by IBM
 
yeah, i agree....Gates may have some of the best software teams but when it comes to hardware....Sony are the undisputed masters..

as an electronics engineer, i see the future of microprocessors as enclosed devices, using a nano-fiber optic technology...no heatsink will be required as frequency is not related to heat (even in todays processors)...all data signals will be conducted optically at speeds unimaginable today...

as for organic compounds used in processors....well i spose anything is possible...but youre talking about cyborgs...brain tissue being used to compute logical matematical processes at the speed of hundreds of millions of commands per second....the human brain doesnt work that fast at the moment...but i would love to see it developed.....if you ask the average person to calculate 98.087*35 and it will take them a few seconds on a calculator and a lot longer in their mind...
 
well,a ctually the brain works a lot faster than that.....what you just displayed wtih that example is only the computational part of the human brain

the brain is involved in countless rounds of receiving nad sending signal, therefore leading to the basic functioning of the human body. Our brain and nerves function a lot faster than most of us perceive...everythign we see and do. like, when we see a door and then we instantly know it's a door.brain collects image from the eye, sorts out the data, interprets it, matches it up with templates stored int eh brain's memory, finds the match, then recognizes it as being a door. that's just simply how fast the brain (together with nerves and various fibres) work.

lol. I have a psychology midterm coming up next week =P
 
when we see a door and then we instantly know it's a door.brain collects image from the eye, sorts out the data, interprets it, matches it up with templates stored int eh brain's memory, finds the match, then recognizes it as being a door
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Taht's why wehn you raed tihs you will recgonsie it aynawy. Ins't taht fnuny!
 
1 vector unit in the PS2 running at 300MHz is capable of running code, in a real world application, at speeds of up to 1 Gigaflop.

A 600 MHz Pentium III can only run code at 35 Megaflops, which is over 28 times slower.

The entire emotion engine itself can yeild a real world performance 6 times greater than a 1GHz Pentium III.

Where the PS2 is lacking is in the Graphic Synthesizer.

Cell, will no doubt completely blow away any home PC for the next 5-10 years. The problem is the Graphic Synthesizer. Sony needs to find a way to really beef it up for the PS3 or all that power will go to waste. Kinda like what has happened with the PS2.
 
Originally posted by TurboSmoke
i think your right Viper Zero....do we have the technology for 100GHz processors yet? i doubt it...
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Sure we do, more than likely we have the technology to go faster than even that. Only reason we're not there yet is because companies like to milk money from us. Hmm, the fastest GHz available right now is somewhere around 3 something right? I'm sure they could make one that's 5 or 10 but they won't. They'll just slowly increase over time. It's a great plan. Just like how DVD players could be made way smaller for homes, yet they won't make any that small until they decide they're done milking our money away with these big ones.

I love corporate America!
 
Originally posted by ExigeExcel
all this talk of more powerfull processors and stuff, how are they going to keep it all cooled?
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Lower clock speeds will keep the PS3 cooled. This is the difference between RISC based designs and CISC based designs. RISC processors use pipelining technology, they can process much more information per clock tick than a CISC based processor. So, you can keep the clock speeds lower than you normally would on a CISC. Cell will be many steps forward from a normal RISC. The EE is a step above a RISC IV in its design because it can process more data per clock tick and has very powerfull vector units. Imagine the processing power of 70 PS2s put together.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2940422.stm

That should give you a rough idea of how powerfull the PS3 will be.

But even with all that power Sony needs a good GPU or Graphic Synth to go along with it and some decent compilers. The PS2 shipped with nothing for developers. It didn't even have good documentation nor did it have any C libraries.
 

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