PS3 and Toshiba's Super Companion Chip..

Crossbar said:
...I agree with previous posters that the full SCC functionality is just total overkill for the PS3...
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For the ignorant, what isn't the SCC overkill for? Is there actually any market for it? The demos of it in operation have been way beyond what normal folk will use in normal CE devices. Toshiba need a CC (sans 'Super') if they want a partner device to sell/integrate with Cell. Otherwise for the bulk functions of southbridge, sane customers will look elsewhere.
 
So what exactly is this supposed to do? Receive audio and video signals and send it to other devices? Upscale images?

What???
 
I didnt understand much from it. The impression I got is that it can recieve audio and video signals and sent it to ther divces as well as probably record some of these signals. :oops:

edit: and I am also curious as to its purpose in the PS3 specifically
 
Nesh said:
What the hell is it doing in the PS3?
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From the posts in this thread and others on this board, it seems to be a stop gap solution to cut some cost and or time for the first versions of the PS3.
Creating a custom chip is expensive and time consuming, using one of the rack is cheaper and quicker, at least for smaller volumes of production.
 
JPT said:
From the posts in this thread and others on this board, it seems to be a stop gap solution to cut some cost and or time for the first versions of the PS3.
Creating a custom chip is expensive and time consuming, using one of the rack is cheaper and quicker, at least for smaller volumes of production.
Click to expand...

Cut costs where? And on what features??
 
Nesh said:
Cut costs where? And on what features??
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Its all speculation, but one scenario might be something like:

We need feature x,y and z in a chip. We can design it ourself and not reach the nov 2006 release or we can throw another 50M USD at the problem to get it in time or we can pay toshiba 5 usd per chip for a chip with features x,y and z plus a,b,c,d and f. Then we can release on time and create our own chip on a cheaper schedule.
Implying that a,b,c,d and f are not needed by the PS3, but it comes with the chip and are unused.

This is just a theory ofcourse, since nobody really knows and which is why people keep discussing it on here.
 
It'd be extremely poor form though if in designing the PS3, someone forgot to include a southbridge until the eleventh hour! The SCC choice is very much a mystery. Could it have been for political reasons?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
It'd be extremely poor form though if in designing the PS3, someone forgot to include a southbridge until the eleventh hour! The SCC choice is very much a mystery. Could it have been for political reasons?
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I doubt they forgot until the 11th hour, but they might have had problems making custom one on schedule or the schedule slipped for some reason due to something else.
Or it could have been done on purpose so that we would have something to talk about :)
 
Betanumerical said:
Maybe they have plans to turn the PS3 into a DVR (Digital Video Recorder)?.
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This is sorta what I think, Stringer mentioned a long time back that Kutaragi had intended to make the PS3 even more expensive than it was before Stringer and co intervened... while this could just be Stringer covering his back side it might also suggest features we don't know of were cut, and that those feature might justify the SCC. I imagine that's all very obvious though...
 
Betanumerical said:
Maybe they have plans to turn the PS3 into a DVR (Digital Video Recorder)?.
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Due out next year in Europe is a TV tuner for digital broadcasts with recording facilities. The PSP has just received a FW update to allow recording of TV programs from its digital tuner. It could be they wanted a full AV solution in the original design, but reconsidered to drop and expensive part, lose functionality and then offer separate extra functions. If so, some Linux hackers could maybe invoke the SCC and use PS3 as The Ultimate Media Hub. Or not...
 
Vitaly Vidmirov said:
You're right, i missed SATA/USB controllers. So it just connecting these discrete devices to FLEXIO. Anyway 40GB version has much smaller chip.
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Is that just the die shrink coming into effect though? I don't have any numbers on the dimensions, but a 90nm big chip will be smaller at 65nm (though, not substantially).
 
Kryton said:
Is that just the die shrink coming into effect though? I don't have any numbers on the dimensions, but a 90nm big chip will be smaller at 65nm (though, not substantially).
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Depends the proportion of logic vs analogue, but for the logic part it's probably fair to expect 0.55-0.65x scaling while SRAM should scale 0.5-0.6x... IIRC, Sony claimed their 65nm shrinks reduced the die sizes by 40% on average in a CC.

And 'much smaller' is an exageration - it's still orders of magnitude bigger than a southbridge should be, and the non-southbridge part is essentially useless for the PS3! :p As for SATA/USB, remember the traditional way to connect to dedicated chips for those is PCI or PCI Express. Presumably the SCC is still used for that thus - but it *is* weird as hell!
 
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