Baseless Next Generation Rumors with no Technical Merits [post E3 2019, pre GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

[Globalisateur]

@AbsoluteBeginner yes indeed. When he made the demo, Cerny said that future devkits would be even faster at loading stuff.

Like if DRAM cache was replaced by SRAM in future devkits...

 

[Proelite]

https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comments/bqy778

Heh...this rumor...just keep getting back to it

That's in direct contrast with the patent. Dram replaced by sram.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Just because something is patented, doesn't mean it'll be created exactly as described. Indeed, patents are always described as 'one embodiment' allowing for variations to be covered. SRAM and DRAM are clearly going to be interchangeable as long as the amount and speed can be accommodated as necessary.

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

That's in direct contrast with the patent. Dram replaced by sram.

Dont agree, if anything it reinforces it. Patents are not 1 to 1, and this looks eerie similar.

 

[3dilettante]

@AbsoluteBeginner yes indeed. When he made the demo, Cerny said that future devkits would be even faster at loading stuff.

Like if DRAM cache was replaced by SRAM in future devkits...

The patent people are citing has SRAM on the controller die in order to discard external buffer memory. Having external SRAM would inject the negatives of the traditional methods that Sony was trying to remove--cost of external modules and lack of bandwidth. However, this comes with the downside that special effort must be made to compensate for the vastly smaller capacity of the on-die memory.

Dont agree, if anything it reinforces it. Patents are not 1 to 1, and this looks eerie similar.

Most of the claims are about internal elements of an SOC and custom controller, so I'm not sure what we'd get from staring at a PCB. Other than having more DRAM that usual, this flash setup isn't out of the ordinary. That there are external DRAM chips and a standard flash controller doesn't pair with a patent that claims to get rid of them. Perhaps someone could argue that they're trying to emulate something extra with the additional buffering on an early kit, but that's not very conclusive of either direction.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Also, people put far too much weight in patents, while they can give some clues on a direction a company is heading people need to keep in mind that tech companies routinely file hundreds and sometimes thousands of patents a year.

Most of those patents never make it into a shipping product. However, the company still needs to file the patent even if they think there's less than a 1% chance that it'll get implemented, because if it does end up getting used, they need that patent protection.

For example, in 2018...

https://fortune.com/2019/01/07/ibm-...-as-ai-and-quantum-computing-gain-prominence/

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Also, people put far too much weight in patents, while they can give some clues on a direction a company is heading people need to keep in mind that tech companies routinely file hundreds and sometimes thousands of patents a year.

This is true, not all patented technologies make into products but new technologies in products will always be patented.

But unless you're seeing a raft of patents related to a particular technology method (which we aren't), then you're left with only three possibilities: 1) that the product doesn't contain any technology related to the patent, 2) that patent is the technology in the product, or 3) that the patent in the product hasn't yet been published. We know that PS5 has something bespoke so you're left with 2 or 3 and Cerny wouldn't have mentioned the technology hadn't a patent been filed so you're really with 2. QED.

The patent people are citing has SRAM on the controller die in order to discard external buffer memory. Having external SRAM would inject the negatives of the traditional methods that Sony was trying to remove--cost of external modules and lack of bandwidth.

I've not been following any 'technical discussion' in this nonsense thread but from a physicality POV you do not want SRAM anywhere near the a high bandwidth solid state I/O controller given SRAM is particular sensitive to signal noise. We've learnt this the expensive way.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But unless you're seeing a raft of patents related to a particular technology method (which we aren't), then you're left with only three possibilities: 1) that the product doesn't contain any technology related to the patent, 2) that patent is the technology in the product, or 3) that the patent in the product hasn't yet been published. We know that PS5 has something bespoke so you're left with 2 or 3 and Cerny wouldn't have mentioned the technology hadn't a patent been filed so you're really with 2. QED.

Again, patent's aren't exact. When filed, they portray one or more embodiments of the technology, but the patent is phrased to accommodate variations. If the invention is a mode and apparatus for fast data streaming, and that is claimed, if the example given in the patent to describe the solution uses SRAM but the final solution used in product uses DRAM, the patent still holds (if correctly worded). Only if the patent states the need for SRAM, like a method and apparatus for accelerating a SRAM cache, would it not be replaceable via DRAM (assuming DRAM can be fast enough).

So really item 4 (or 2a) in your list of possibilities - that the product contains a variation of the patent not described exactly in the patent.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Again, patent's aren't exact. When filed, they portray one or more embodiments of the technology, but the patent is phrased to accommodate variations.

Patents have to be pretty damn exact which is why it's often difficult to discern intention from patent text alone. The referred to patent is a US process patent, or what Europeans oft refer to as method patent. It doesn't need to describe aspects not relevant to the method, e.g. the type of RAM used. I'm largely disregarding this thread and was only intrigued to see what lured 3dilettante here. The specific application favours SRAM (for speed) and SRAM wants to be far from the controller. That's my two pennies' worth.

 

[Globalisateur]

According to our own @chris1515 and his sources, this patent is the SSD tech that is inside PS5.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

According to our own @chris1515 and his sources, this patent is the SSD tech that is inside PS5.

Which is think makes sense because Sony only filed a few patents related to reducing load times, some on the software/API side and some are on the hardware side. The software side stuff is, I believe, an evolution of Sony's existing patents for eerily-fast PS4 game install times. These are all about having the right data in the right place as it's needed.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Patents need to be as exact as required to not infringe someone else, but also as vague as possible to encompass other derivative ideas not expressly described within the patent. That's why it's full of terms like "one such embodiment" and "including but not limited to" and long lists of alternative applications or variations (always marked as non-limiting).

eg. Assuming it's this patent being talked about...

The information processing device illustrated here may be an ordinary information device such as portable game console, personal computer, mobile phone, tablet terminal, or PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).

...and this wonderfully precise....

Therefore, it is understood by those skilled in the art that the operation thereof can be implemented in various ways by hardware alone, software alone, or a combination thereof. The present disclosure is not limited to any one of them.

It's classic, "here is a patent, and we claim rights to any and every idea that can be extrapolated from it including all those we never thought of when we made it."

According to our own @chris1515 and his sources, this patent is the SSD tech that is inside PS5.

The SSD tech in that patent doesn't define any particular, necessary RAM type. The example of a SRAM-based memory map is one such embodiment. It was the preferred embodiment at the time of filing, in 2016. Since then, if Sony have found that job can be better served by DRAM, they can use DRAM and still conform to their patent. Claim 1 makes zero mention of particular types of memory...

1. An information processing device comprising: a host unit adapted to request data access by specifying a logical address of a secondary storage device; and a controller adapted to accept the data access request and convert the logical address into a physical address using an address conversion table to perform data access to an associated area of the secondary storage device, wherein an address space defined by the address conversion table includes a coarsely granular address space that collectively associates, with logical addresses, physical addresses that are in units larger than those in which data is read.​

It would even seem in claim 8 they are specifying doing this file mapping just in software, meaning the file mapping would be stored in system RAM.

A patent embodiment may increase the likelihood of that being the final form, if ever used, but it prescribe the final form by any stretch and any suitable variation is possible.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

...and this wonderfully precise....

In patent language this means the patent is not limited to a method employed in one specific type of device. If you don't include something like this, your patented tech deployed in a console can be used by competitors in a any non-console device without recourse. I.e. this type of provision is standard.

It's classic, "here is a patent, and we claim rights to any and every idea that can be extrapolated from it including all those we never thought of when we made it."

Also standard. They're patenting a method but not restricting the implementation to hardware or software, nor willing to specify where the demarcation lies in the PS5 - because that will be the first implementation but probably won't be the last and things may/will change.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I know it's standard. I said it's standard. That's the modus operandi of patents, to cover as large a field as possible. Ergo, this 'patent' does not describe one specific SSD solution for PS5.

Do you agree or disagree? Because the preferred embodiment of the patent when filed in 2016 used SRAM, does that mean that the solution in PS5 has to use SRAM and cannot use DRAM or anything else (including running the look-up table from system RAM via software)?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Do you agree or disagree? Because the preferred embodiment of the patent when filed in 2016 used SRAM, does that mean that the solution in PS5 has to use SRAM and cannot use DRAM or anything else (including running the look-up table from system RAM via software)?

I disagree. The problem Sony are trying to solve cannot rely on the DRAM within Sony's budget, the latency is way too high for any form of LUT for fast solid state storage which also has to accommodate fast changes brought through writes. The same problem was solved in the server world some years back but Sony need to solve it at about a thousandth of the cost.

 

[ultragpu]

The 5700 series reviews are out, it sure bodes well for our Navi based consoles seeing how even the standard 5700 can come in spitting distance with 2070 in 4k res while handily beating Vega 64 most of the time .
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3406840/amd-radeon-rx-5700-and-5700-xt-review.html?page=3
Man we're gonna need a new multiplier now after seeing the benchmarks, it seems 1.5-1.6x should be applied seeing how a 8tf RDNA gpu is at least equaling and beating a 12.6tf GCN gpu.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This isn't about the technical feasibility of DRAM vs SRAM, but whether the patent is in effect iron-clad and binding. This is about whether a product has to subscribe exactly to the 'preferred embodiment' of a patent or if it can be a different embodiment and still be covered by the patent.

The issue here is how people interpret patents and their expectations as a result, with patents being cited as a blueprint for the final product and taken as Gospel. I'm saying we can't use patents as basically the same as leaks of actual products - it's patented ergo this is the product - as some people feel you can, for the reasons described about how patents work.

So to clarify my question, do you agree or disagree that a 'preferred embodiment' in a patent describing a particular solution is the only solution possible that the patent covers, and no other solutions (alternative embodiments, either described or not in the patent) could be implemented if found to be technically possible?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

This isn't about the technical feasibility of DRAM vs SRAM, but whether the patent is in effect iron-clad and binding. This is about whether a product has to subscribe exactly to the 'preferred embodiment' of a patent or if it can be a different embodiment and still be covered by the patent.

You need to ask a patent lawyer. Patents are written by lawyers for interpretation by patent lawyers and courts, not laymen.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Patent law was developed for use by the layman. You don't need a lawyer, nor to be a lawyer, to create a patent, although writing one that adequately protects your IP without knowing how patent lawyers can look for loopholes is risky. It is how I say (unless there's been a major overhaul in the last 10 years I don't know about) - a patent description is not in any way binding. You don't need any diagrams or descriptions, and only really need a claim. The 'everything else' is to help clarify your idea when challenged so you can prove it's new and unique and non-obvious, so you ensure when drafting the patent that you don't tie yourself to any particular embodiments so that you can use and protect variations of it.

For this reason, no-one should present a patent as evidence of what a product is or will be. The end product may include the patent as described in one of the embodiments documented in it, or it may include a variation not described in the document but still covered by the patent, or the patent may not apply to the released product at all. Patents provide us with view of possibilities, not certainties.

 

[AlNom]

Sunday question: pay-tent or Pat Ent