PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)

Would something like a Zlib decompression unit be that big in this day & age & not part of another chip?

None of the websites I seen the breakdowns on seem to know what it is.

 

Where or what is it hooked up to ?

 

It's the custom chip in the center of the board, connected mostly to the main SoC that nobody seemed to have figured out what it was.

 

The recent tech report article on Mantle makes specific references to increased GPU utlisation through the use of compute jobs. It also makes reference to increased control over memory allocation and CPU threads. It makes sense, especially considering HSA is AMD's baby that mantle would allow the same low level HSA programming model that is available on the consoles.

 

I'm pretty sure Chipworks and other reverse-engineering groups would have some idea of what it is. It took a matter of hours before they had gotten the APU die stripped.

It doesn't seem like it's too minor to take note of, as they've catalogued every other minor piece of silicon they could find with at least a blurb on its function.
It might be worth a bit of money for more analysis.

If there is some kind of security measure involved in the chip, or it is part of the platform's security layer, they might be holding back for anti-circumvention reasons. I think it could still be allowable to reverse-engineer it, but there might be additional hurdles to clear legally.

 

None of them seem to know but one thing I have notices is that they all have different numbers on them. SCEI 1328KM476 , 1327KM449 , 1334KM411

But I came up with 'Karnik-Mendel' as I tried to figure out what the KM was for but I'm not really sure what that is but it's an Algorithm.

here is a PDF about Enhanced Karnik–Mendel Algorithms



Maybe this is an AI co-processor or just a chip used to control the Fan in the PS4 based on how hot the APU gets.

 

Part numbers are usually much less descriptive, and there's a block with KM markings in the Vita.

Anyway, the chips are branded SCEI but don't follow the usual SCEI numbering system - that may simply indicate that they don't originate in the same part of the SCEI group.

 

It was partially joking, I based it off the size of some of AHA's compression/decompression units.

 

This

 

It isn't an AI coprocessor, and that chip is like several orders of magnitude more complex than is needed for simple thermal fan control.

 

It's probably just the display output chip for Remote Play / Gameplay recording & streaming.

 

What's a display output chip ?

RemotePlay has no screen output per se. It would be a Gaikai encoder chip in that case.

Not saying there is one in PS4 though.

 

AMD GPU part has that encoder built in doesn't it?

 

like the HDMI chip but instead of sending the video out to the HDMI output it will be outputting the video to the south bridge to be sent to the network \hard drive.

 

Has anyone seen any teardown shots that shows the inside of the top lid, or more specifically, the design of the light bar? I'm curious what it looks like, I haven't even really seen to where on the motherboard it connects, although that's probably just me not paying attention I guess. Presumably it would be one ribbon cable for the front buttons and the lightbar...

 

Small gripe I know but I'm not keen on the standby colour of the bar. Blue for standby and white for on would be my preference. Red for '0h $h!t' as is traditional.

 

Blue/White are often used for electronics when they're turned on though. Red/Orange are often used for off/standby.

 

I didn't take any picture of it, but it's yet another neat part of the design with no wires.

It's a molded plastic lightguide on the top case piece, it reaches through a wide hole in the shielding, it ends roughly above the tiny leds soldered on the main PCB. No wires for the power button and eject either, they're just a metal part that contacts with pads on the boards.

 

That actually goes back to PS2. PS2 was the first device I ever saw with a blue LED, because they were rare back then. It was awesomely cool. Now every device has blue LEDs and it's kinda penetrating.

 

Any ideas how this LED flow is done?