Fall Processor Forum

[Titanio]

I guess now if we new what kind of capacity (wafers/month) Sony was aiming for - this is often quoted? - we could figure how many PS3 CPUs they can make per month, before duds

Did they ever give a figure when they announced all those fab investments?

 

[Gubbi]

100 CPUs per wafer..

There are 200 per wafer (two CELLs sits closely back-to-back).

Still a big chip.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[Carl B]

Well, 228 to be exact.

 

[nAo]

Now it's official, I can't count

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They are big chips though! Almost an inch long. I remember seeing my first chip, and it was a tiny blob inside a much large plastic package with several metal legs. This actual piece of silicon is several times the size of that whole chip, package and all! And much large than my Athlon 2500 core. Definitely not little.

 

[London Geezer]

Now it's official, I can't count

Well as long as the Heavenly Sword people have 2 (two) arms, 2(two) legs, 2 (two) eyes, you'll be fine...

 

[one]

The IBM session on Cell EIB and RAG details, and programming models.
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/articles/2005/11/05/fpf1/
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/articles/2005/11/05/fpf1/001.html
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/articles/2005/11/05/fpf1/002.html
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/articles/2005/11/05/fpf1/003.html
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/articles/2005/11/05/fpf1/004.html

 

[DeanoC]

Can I just point out the obvious IBM != Sony?

 

[mckmas8808]

Can I just point out the obvious IBM != Sony?

To be totally honest I don't understand your statement in relevence to what one posted. Isn't this basically the same processor that Sony will put in the PS3?

 

[version]

Can I just point out the obvious IBM != Sony?

sony's cell better or worse than ibm'cell ?

 

[nAo]

A processor is an unique combination of hw and sw..

 

[one]

Can I just point out the obvious IBM != Sony?

IIRC, this FPF session from IBM on the Cell programming model is an updated version of what they gave at the conference where they presented the FFT demo. At that time they only put a reference to the SCEA research GDC presentation about Cell programming, but this time in the FPF presentation it seems IBM added concepts such as Job Queue, streaming etc. to their own presentation. IBM's concern is mainly about Linux and their XLC compiler, so I understand it's different from what SCE pursue, but there should be *some* overlap I assume.

 

[Megadrive1988]

From that article


Is this the first time transistor count for XeCPU has been mentioned? I was thinking how that compared to Cell (234 million) as to how power use, cost etc. might compare, but being totally different designs I'm not sure that comparison is mouch use. Save at 70% of the size, it should be roughly 70% the cost

perhaps officially straight from IBM, but this is not the first time ever that XeCPU's transistor count has been mentioned. the 165M transisor figure was seen in at least one article, between May 12th and May 16th of this year when specs were leaked / revealed.


http://www.gamespot.com/features/6124293/p-3.html May 12th or May 13th

The 165-million transistor chip will run at 3.2GHz

edit: another one http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/612/612995p1.html May 12th

The CPU is an amazing piece of technology, as it's built with 165 million transistors in it, many the size of mere nanometers. IBM had three plants working on the development of the chips.

 

[Megadrive1988]

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2005/10/ibm_describes_x.html



I remember someone in this forum pointed out when the Xbox 360 patent appeared that those guys on the patent had been behind 3DO M2, which sports dual PowerPC processors, I wonder what they were thinking back in they days when MS went to Intel for Xbox 1? My guess is the original hardcore-gamer-type Xbox team was defeated in corporate politics and those 3DO/WebTV guys resurfaced instead with a new chance.

agreed! I am willing to believe that (and my memory is foggy on this) the WebTV / 3DO team that was working on their own console within Microsoft would have used a PowerPC processor with the Nvidia GPU or GigaPixel GPU.

the Xbox 360 is everything I want as far as its core chipset

-PowerPC processor and not X86/Intel
-more than one CPU, like M2, but in the form of multi-core on 1 chip
-embedded memory for graphics, somewhat like what MX (upgraded M2) was going to have
-ATI graphics with contributions from former Lockheed Real3D people
- nice amount of system memory