How large will Cell be ?

[Panajev2001a]

As I said before, the arguement doesnt hold much weight since they had a shrink shortly after releasing the PS2 too (and the density on their first generation chips was damn lousy too). Basically it is all guess work and there are too many arguements for either side to make a reasonable guess.

I am not sure they had a shrink to 150 nm EE and GS chips ( the yelds problem was with the 180 nm GS and that is the reason why the Japanese launch PlayStation 2 onsoles shipped with the 250 nm GS ) right after the PlayStation 2 launch, but I will try to double check that for you.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Going by this document:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/info/presen/eve_03/handout.pdf

( bottom of page 2, IIRC )

It seems that the next shrink arrived around a year after the release of PlayStation 2 ( they are counting FY not calendar years ).

I do not expect to see the 45 nm die shrink to be that much more than 1 year after the probably Q4 2005 launch.

The situation is not too dissimilar.

 

[Deepak]

This article may give us an idea about transistor count we can expect in Cell....

Intel is trumpeting a technology breakthrough it says will lead to billion-transistor processors by 2007, resulting in computing power well beyond what's capable today.

 

[MfA]

Intel can sell processors for 500+ dollars.

 

[London Geezer]

unless i'm missing something, that would mean that "the top of the top of the top range of IBM chips done in 2007 will have 1B trans...."

bit different market here...

of course, unless i'm missing/messing something