PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)

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I had a look but couldn't see it. Which slide is it?
All slides with screenshots of the profiling tool contain timing informations for the different function calls if one looks closely. The times were given in µs as well as clock cycles. But one could always say, that it was done on a devkit, not the final version going to sale. But this tells us, that 1.6GHz isn't a bad bet.
 
I noticed that the devkits weights twice as much as the final product.
For what is worth the drawing of the devkit matches the photo leaked months ago; the only difference is that now they have a third USB on the left.
 
I noticed that the devkits weights twice as much as the final product.
For what is worth the drawing of the devkit matches the photo leaked months ago; the only difference is that now they have a third USB on the left.

The metal housing?. But that would be too much of a difference.
 
Well the size of the devkits is also different.

PS4 is: 275×53×305 mm (width × height × length)
Dev kit: 370×118×226 mm (width × height × length)
 
Arwin's article on HSA also has mention of a embedded ARM core:

HSA isn't just for CPUs with integrated GPUs. In principle, the other processors that share access to system memory could be anything, such as cryptographic accelerators, or programmable hardware such as FPGAs. They might also be other CPUs, with a combined x86/ARM chip often conjectured. Kaveri will in fact embed a small ARM core for creation of secure execution environments on the CPU. Discrete GPUs could similarly use HSA to access system memory.

'cryptographic accelerators' certainly suggests that the seperate processor is used for system security. Interestingly, the article suggests that such a core could be embedded in the SoC.
 
CPU of ps4 is clocked at 1.6 Ghz and GPU is clocked at 800 Mhz. If increasing the clock speed of the CPU makes the power consumption increase drastically then there is a strong reason other than excess heat that sony doesnt want it to be upclocked . I also think that this decision of lower clock of both the cpu and gpu has to do with PS4 as a platform's future revisions . Like trying other form factors of ps4 .

Gaikai had two streaming technologies . The first one is just running the software on a server and then streaming it to the client for inputs . And the second is streaming parts of the actual software on the client and running natively on the clients hardware .

I think that making a portable version of the ps4 in the near future , sony wants to use the second streaming tech of gaikai . And this is why ps4 has only 100 watt tdp on the apu and also the lower clockspeeds .
 
Arwin's article on HSA also has mention of a embedded ARM core:

'cryptographic accelerators' certainly suggests that the seperate processor is used for system security. Interestingly, the article suggests that such a core could be embedded in the SoC.
AMD announced a year ago that starting with Kabini their APUs/SoCs will integrate ARM's Trustzone using a small (half a mm² or so) A5 core (integrated to the same die of course).
 
AMD announced a year ago that starting with Kabini their APUs/SoCs will integrate ARM's Trustzone using a small (half a mm² or so) A5 core (integrated to the same die of course).

Could the 'secondary core' that's been mentioned be exactly one of these? It's absolutely certain that Sony will want PS4 to be more secure than the previous systems. If you're going to control security, it'd make sense to include such a CPU (or 'cryptographic accelerators') on the same die, so that it can't be bypassed with a soldered chip.
 
Could the 'secondary core' that's been mentioned be exactly one of these? It's absolutely certain that Sony will want PS4 to be more secure than the previous systems. If you're going to control security, it'd make sense to include such a CPU (or 'cryptographic accelerators') on the same die, so that it can't be bypassed with a soldered chip.

It's always been assumed that the PS4 was doing exactly that - there were also early rumours that Durango was similarly using trustzone, although I'm not sure how reliable those rumours were/are.

In terms of location, there was some reason to believe it was actually embedded on the southbridge rather than the SoC, but i can't remember why...
 
Well the slide with the information during the reveal did say it was a 'secondary custom chip' with a image of another chip, so it's entirely possible. I don't understand why they'd choose to make it separate though. Unless they're two independent processors, but that is surely overkill. I'd imagine a simple ARM processor could cope with both security and downloads/uploads.
 
Having the secondary processor separate from the APU could make some things simpler, such as keeping it awake when the whole APU and RAM is completely off for power reasons.

The wording used to describe it doesn't give much of a physical hint.
One count against using the A5 in AMD's Trustzone for this is that the background processor in the PS4 is described as arbitrating network and disk transactions, as well as handling automatic updates.

That's much more than what AMD's Trustzone implementation is tasked with doing.
 
Having the secondary processor separate from the APU could make some things simpler, such as keeping it awake when the whole APU and RAM is completely off for power reasons.

The wording used to describe it doesn't give much of a physical hint.
One count against using the A5 in AMD's Trustzone for this is that the background processor in the PS4 is described as arbitrating network and disk transactions, as well as handling automatic updates.

That's much more than what AMD's Trustzone implementation is tasked with doing.
Yeah, the background downloads/updating is done separately as I would understand it. The Trustzone is only responsible for securing that only certified software is running and nobody tempered with the software and such things. At least if Sony didn't decide for an own/custom solution. Using Trustzone would just simplify things a bit (as this was readied for integration into AMD's APUs anyway).
 
Well the slide with the information during the reveal did say it was a 'secondary custom chip' with a image of another chip, so it's entirely possible. I don't understand why they'd choose to make it separate though. Unless they're two independent processors, but that is surely overkill. I'd imagine a simple ARM processor could cope with both security and downloads/uploads.
The 'cryptographic accelerator' references will almost certainly be a reference to Advanced Encryption Standards instructions set which can be found in recent recent-ish Intel architectures and AMD chipsets, including Jaguar. The purpose of these instructions are to make common AES128/256-bit algorithms much faster running on 80x86. That's both encryption and decryption. If both devices use encrypted file systems (the PS3 does) then this alone will result in a significant disk I/O performance boost - and be harder to break.

The equivalent instructions aren't common in COTS ARM processors yet to the best of my knowledge, and my knowledge on cryptography products is pretty good cough Government cough, but if ARM is being used for security it'll be for TrustZone, which is focussed on access control rather than encryption. I'd expect both to be working in tandem, solutions similar to this approach are deployed in a number of sensitive financial, aerospace and defence environments.
 
If the chip is providing more functions than an A5 that's part of a PC SoC and in this instance is separate from the PS4 SoC; it just seems to me that it could function as a second layer. Maybe an OS overlay for mid-game information. Especially if it is handling updates, disc transmissions, and network. While also acccessing the RAM.

The 360 XBL guide chugs like crazy when running a graphically intensive game. Which is especially jarring when using Kinect.
 
If the chip is providing more functions than an A5 that's part of a PC SoC and in this instance is separate from the PS4 SoC; it just seems to me that it could function as a second layer. Maybe an OS overlay for mid-game information.
Such things would be handled definitely by the main SoC.
 
Gaikai had two streaming technologies . The first one is just running the software on a server and then streaming it to the client for inputs . And the second is streaming parts of the actual software on the client and running natively on the clients hardware .

I think that making a portable version of the ps4 in the near future , sony wants to use the second streaming tech of gaikai . And this is why ps4 has only 100 watt tdp on the apu and also the lower clockspeeds .

Do you have a source link for the bolded info ? ... coz the second Gaikai tech I'm aware of is just progressive download. :)

Haven't heard anything about Gaikai partial game streaming yet.
 
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