So if indeed that smaller die is the eDRAM, that means MS has beaten both AMD and Intel in releasing a CPU w/GPU on die.
Regards,
SB
But didn't Sony beat all of them to this punch with the PS2?
Regards,
SB
Xbox 360 slim hardware thread
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
But didn't Sony beat all of them to this punch with the PS2?
Regards,
SB
So if indeed that smaller die is the eDRAM, that means MS has beaten both AMD and Intel in releasing a CPU w/GPU on die.
Regards,
SB
Anyway, my congrats to MS for releasing CPU integrated with GPU, as such action requires a considerable amount of time and cooperation!
Anyway so how much would that cost @ $5000 per wafer?
I estimated 420 die could fit into a wafer at that size. Then I figure around 5% are useless due to being on the edge, so 400 possible die candidates. Then I figured 70% yield on that which yields 280 good dies per wafer or $17.86 per die.
However thats not the end of it, I figured another $3 per die candidate for testing/packaging and thats around $1200 per wafer which adding to the total cost means the overall cost per die could be $22.14. Of course the ED-Ram would be another $4-5 on top of that, so total package cost of ~$27.14 sounds ok?
Im probably completely wrong, so im only doing this so that it annoys all the people who know better enough to compell them to correct me!
I estimated 420 die could fit into a wafer at that size. Then I figure around 5% are useless due to being on the edge, so 400 possible die candidates. Then I figured 70% yield on that which yields 280 good dies per wafer or $17.86 per die.
However thats not the end of it, I figured another $3 per die candidate for testing/packaging and thats around $1200 per wafer which adding to the total cost means the overall cost per die could be $22.14. Of course the ED-Ram would be another $4-5 on top of that, so total package cost of ~$27.14 sounds ok?
Im probably completely wrong, so im only doing this so that it annoys all the people who know better enough to compell them to correct me!
If we're gonna go there, I'd give credit to Nintendo for that with the original Gameboy...But didn't Sony beat all of them to this punch with the PS2?
Of course, there's probably examples of even older integrated designs out there than the GB when graphics capabilities are so rudimentary...
If we're gonna go there, I'd give credit to Nintendo for that with the original Gameboy...
Of course, there's probably examples of even older integrated designs out there than the GB when graphics capabilities are so rudimentary...
Wouldn't this be the first GPU/CPU of this "magnitude", for lack of a better term, combined (even though hardly cutting edge anymore)?
I mean the only other that comes to mind is AMD's fusion, which isn't out yet.
And I think there's some CPU's with low end integrated graphics combined already, right?
corduroygt
Banned
If you're talking about Arrandale, the GPU+Memory controller is on a separate die there. It will get combined when Intel is able to make more 32nm wafers.
Pretty impressive achievement for the 360 though, I wonder if the PS3 will ever be able to do the same, with two different memory interfaces for cpu and gpu.
All things considered, the shrinks were quite "bad". Though Jasper->Valhalla is sort of ok I guess at 65% the die size - I wonder if that die also includes some empty space because the cpu and gpu probably are just stitched together. Though considering the combination should also eliminate some i/o it doesn't look that well neither.
The really bad shrink was actually Xenon->Jasper (at 71% die size), for a full node shrink in particular the cpu did terrible (well if it really was at 90nm to begin with).
The edram doesn't look to me like it is at 45nm (too big for a shrink from 80nm) - maybe 55 or 65nm. Looks like there are still challenges in integrating this, as it shouldn't have increased total die size a lot. It wouldn't have surprised me though if this were integrated as well - ibm has certainly shown it can do it (used on power7). Well maybe next revision, if there is one...
For comparisons sake the AMD Propus Athlon II X4 core is 300M transistors and identical in size at 168mm^2. By comparison the Xbox 360 CGPU has 130M more transistors, same quantity of L2 cache and a memory interface which is twice as wide. I can't see any obvious reason to make a complaint about the ratios which they shrunk the chips over the various process nodes whilst bearing in mind that the majority of chip is logic not cache.
Theres probably a very good reason why they aren't combined yet, my best guess is that they had a strict time schedule to release by the middle of this year. They can very easily at their leisure if they are so inclined combine the two chips next year given the fact it would only involve a packaging change at a system level.
In any case they probably didn't have any significant reason to bother, at 45mm^2 its not like the ED-Ram is costing a significant quantity of money to fabricate and may very well increase their overall costs if they were to integrate it considering the yields for a larger main CPU die would be worse if they had a larger chip. They do not have the luxury of selling their chips at $500+++ like IBM does, so yields matter significantly.
Some good points. In fact Xbox cpu should have only half the cache (1MB vs 2MB), though I don't know how much cache the GPU has. I thought though the cpu was ~165M transistors and the GPU ~232M which would be "only" about 100M more. The memory interface however has the same width (2x64bit gddr3). And, the propus core definitely also includes unused die area. Still, compared to that the CGPU indeed doesn't look half bad. Keep in mind however the graphic part is typically packed more densely (redwood, for example, while being 40nm not 45nm, is over 600M transistors at only 104mm^2).
It's really not so much the size just being too big - it just looks to me like given the size it was at 90nm it didn't shrink particularly well.
I think having two separate dies adds packaging costs. IFF edram can be integrated without issues, it shouldn't affect yields a lot, since it shouldn't increase die size much (still well below 200mm^2 at 45nm).
Sorry, you were right it was 2MB (I was thinking of the X2 variant for some reason when I wrote that) and 165M transistors is the count, 230M is actually the transistor count for the Cell processor in the PS3! Oh what a muddle!
In any case that comparative graphics part was designed specifically for the node it was released at. The Xenos/Xenon GPU/CPU were originally designed at 90nm and shrunk two full nodes. I am pretty certain that theres a lot of empty space within a Valhalla? Core especially in comparison to Propus and Redwood which were both designed for their particular nodes. Furthermore AMD could design their parts much more aggressively as they have the option of creating salvage parts and releasing speed binned variants.
I wouldn't consider the packaging difference to be significant as both the ED-Ram and Valhalla die are on the same package. Anyway it could have been due to any number of things such as yields as including the ED-RAM would have pushed the die size above either of the original 90nm CPU/GPU chips respectively. It could also have been logistics as including all three would have required input from IBM, ATI and NEC and it would have taken more time to complete the work given the increased complexity so the cost/benefit ratio may have been too poor to consider it at the time.
I've been playing around with the new 360 for a little over a week now. I must say , compared to my 20 gig and 60 gig 360s its an amazing diffrence. Its much smaller and more sleak in the space where the others went. It makes no noise and barely makes any noise when playing a game. Now the 60 gig wasn't amazingly loud either but this is new level in silence with the 360.
Now I only have a 40 gig ps3 fat. I must say that is alot smaller than that and the touch controls seem to work much better than the 40 gig ps3.
I notice that games seem to load slightly faster and install slightly faster as well as the dash generaly being faster. I'm using the same cat 6 cable as i did with my old 360s but it seems that when i go see my friends everything pulls up much much faster.
I'm very impressed over all with this and I think it shows how far ms has come. Its night and day compared to the original and if they can bring this type of design for xbox next things will heat up.
Now I only have a 40 gig ps3 fat. I must say that is alot smaller than that and the touch controls seem to work much better than the 40 gig ps3.
I notice that games seem to load slightly faster and install slightly faster as well as the dash generaly being faster. I'm using the same cat 6 cable as i did with my old 360s but it seems that when i go see my friends everything pulls up much much faster.
I'm very impressed over all with this and I think it shows how far ms has come. Its night and day compared to the original and if they can bring this type of design for xbox next things will heat up.
Any ideas as to why? My best guess is the ROM is faster or maybe it clocks higher when in dashboard if there is such thing as a power saving mode?
Finally got my slim yesterday as well, took forever for Gamestop to get more I moved my old Elite to another room, and was thinking of doing speed tests to compare load times on the Elite and the Slim. Or has that already been done by a website someplace? I'm curious as well if the new one loads faster.
I moved my old Elite to another room, and was thinking of doing speed tests to compare load times on the Elite and the Slim. Or has that already been done by a website someplace? I'm curious as well if the new one loads faster.In terms of costs, would they be setting aside a certain quantity of money per Xbox 360 sold for the RROD/E71 3 year warranty? If so then the revision could be a significant cost saving against previous Xbox 360 models because I doubt that the $1,000,0000,000 set aside would cover more than the original units sold.
I'm pretty sure it was a 500m charge to cover all RROD up till and through that year and then 500m for future costs due to the problem. Who knows if they ever used that 500m or how much of it they used. I'm pretty sure the RROD problems were pretty much over with once they started getting the 60 gig units out. Now these slim units go into what i believe is a low power state once they detect to high of a temp.
findhorn_elves
Newcomer
Hows the RODD? has it been resolved im planning on getting one