Cell Chip Presentation ... End of June!?

[McFly]

http://www.1up.com/article2/0,2053,1552479,00.asp

Though it has been primarily a topic of speculation as yet, it looks as if Sony, Toshiba, and IBM plan to speak in more detail to the public about their upcoming Cell processor soon. The Cell chip, a new semiconductor technology planned for use in Sony's next game console, will be the subject of a presentation at a conference held by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers this summer.

The Cell will be one of many topics of discussion at the 2004 Vail Computer Elements workshop, taking place in Vail, Colorado June 27-30. IBM's Peter Hofstee, one of the key IBM staff members on the Cell project, will deliver a presentation on the Cell as part of the Consumer Electronics track on June 29, in a session chaired by Sony's Yoshiaki Hagiwara (a long-time Sony technology evangelist and the inventor of the digital camera CCD) and IBM Japan's Michinori Nishihara.

Sony, IBM, and Toshiba have collaborated on the design of the Cell and related manufacturing technologies since 2001, working towards a powerful processor capable of working in parallel with many other identical chips over high-speed networks. All three plan to manufacture the chip at their own facilities for different applications, but Sony's plan to use the chip as the core of its next game console has drawn the most attention.

Pilot production of the Cell processor is scheduled to begin in the first half of fiscal 2005, between April and September of next year. Sony has yet to confirm when it would ramp up to full production, however.

Some analysts speculate that the Cell will also be up for discussion at events put on by IBM earlier in the spring, as well as the Game Developers Conference and E3. We'll see if any information of interest to the layman arises over the next few months.

So I can't take vacation in June?

Interesting. Pilot production first half 2005? Hmmm ... when was the first pilot production for PS2? Looks like end of 2005 for Japan, mid 2006 rest of the world or did I get this wrong?

Fredi

 

[London Geezer]

*sits and waits...*

 

[passerby]

The presentation at the IEEE conference is more realistic than anything else. After all EE(and GS?) were revealed at a semicon-related conference instead of a game-related event. We already know very little is going to be said at GDC, and no great loss not saying much at this year's E3 either - Sony can focus on PSP and PS2 online games.

 

[MfA]

I doubt Sony would let IBM get the glory.

 

[London Geezer]

I think that just the fact that PS3 will be a Sony product will take care of that worry, Mfa...

 

[MfA]

The PS3 will be a long time coming ... I still dont see Sony letting IBM taking the glory of being the first to announce the specs for the CPU.

 

[London Geezer]

Oh i see what u mean... Well i'm sure Sony, IBM and Toshiba (everyone always seems to forget about them! poor souls) will have looooooong talks before anything is announced by any of them...

 

[Vince]

The PS3 will be a long time coming ... I still dont see Sony letting IBM taking the glory of being the first to announce the specs for the CPU.

The Emotion Engine was first presented by a join Toshiba/Sony presentation at HotChips 1999 in that 5.5GFlop Vector Units for Emotion Synthesis talk. And then again at IEEE by Sony/Toshiba in 2000 as the EE as manifested in the PS2.

So, I don't think it's exclusionary of all 3rd parties as you seem to infer.

 

[Megadrive1988]

And then again at IEEE by Sony/Toshiba in 2000 as the EE as manifested in the PS2.

I believe that was also in 1999, since the PS2 chipset
(Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer) was revealed in March 1999.

 

[Paul]

March 2nd 1999 Sony showed PS2 chipset and Tech demos.

ISSCC 1999, which was feburary if I'm not mistaken, Sony and Toshiba showed EE, but did not link it directly to the PS2

 

[Paul]

They may just talk about the general aspects of Cell in June(As it is an architecture) and the actual PS3 Cell IC(BE and a GPU) earlier, or later.

As I do think that Kutaragi will be showing off PS3 specs, it's only natural.

Then again who knows, maybe Kutaragi will be there in June.

 

[Sonic]

Emotion Engine specs were known well before February of that year. There was a little birdie spouting all the information across the DCTP forum at the time, we all thought he was lying. He was dead on and knew his stuff. Basically what I'm saying is that we should start hearing rumors closer to the unveiling of CELL and the PS3 configuration. It may be a slow trickle but it should be enough to satisfy most for speculation.

 

[Paul]

Well not officially Some may argue we know most of PS3's specs now(or atleast a gist), a certain document does cover PS3's CPU, though it could change.

 

[Vince]

Emotion Engine specs were known well before February of that year. There was a little birdie spouting all the information across the DCTP forum at the time, we all thought he was lying. He was dead on and knew his stuff. Basically what I'm saying is that we should start hearing rumors closer to the unveiling of CELL and the PS3 configuration. It may be a slow trickle but it should be enough to satisfy most for speculation.

Interesting, thanks Sonic. Something else which in hindsight is clear but at the time I din't notice was that Sony (SCE) basically had the entire EmotionEngine Architecture patented in 1997/1998. The only thing which changed (what I was talking about Megadrive1988) is clockspeed between the patent, the HotChips presentation and what we saw at IEEE. Kind of interesting how it parallels what we might be seeing today.

 

[Sonic]

Sony has started to talk to developers on the PS3, at least the big ones and has even given the green light for select titles to start development. There is definitely a little more information out there than are in the patents, though it is pretty much the same as what the Xbox2's info gives: What to expect and what the strengths of the console will be. Not very telling but it does give a good picture. NDA's are signed of course.

 

[Paul]

Kind of interesting how it parallels what we might be seeing today.

History repeats itself.

Though, what was the clock speed in the patent? Of the EE.

 

[Megadrive1988]

the words "and so it begins" mean more now than ever before, with regard to PS3 8)

 

[passerby]

Sony has started to talk to developers on the PS3, at least the big ones and has even given the green light for select titles to start development. There is definitely a little more information out there than are in the patents, though it is pretty much the same as what the Xbox2's info gives: What to expect and what the strengths of the console will be. Not very telling but it does give a good picture. NDA's are signed of course.

Even though many things are still a big that's still the most... telling/concrete info about PS3 I've heard so far.

 

[Lazy8s]

Paul:

ISSCC 1999, which was feburary if I'm not mistaken, Sony and Toshiba showed EE, but did not link it directly to the PS2

But Next Gen Online did! Ugh, I remember the headline that night: "PSX2 - 55 Million Polygons per Second!" Shortly after, they learned the part going into the PS2 would actually be a little better and changed it to "66 Million".

Sonic:

There was a little birdie spouting all the information across the DCTP forum at the time, we all thought he was lying.

I didn't necessarily think they were lies (Suneet could joke some, but he was still a trusted guy), but what I could tell was the facts that Suneet was being passed were PR-grade in their lack of objectiveness (which was disappointing in that they actually came from an engineer close to Kutaragi on the PS2 design team, through Suneet Shah's uncle). Recounting that the engineer laughed at the Dreamcast's spec of only a few million polygons/sec while boasting that the PS2 would be doing many tens of millions immediately tipped me off that he was passing off the theoretical numbers.

 

[London Geezer]

"PSX2 - 55 Million Polygons per Second!"

THAT's where it comes from!!!!! Caught u, DM... j/k