Playstation 5 [PS5] [Release November 12 2020]

[Lalaland]

It would be wild if they went with Gallium because, as you say, it is a very expensive metal with spot markets for it at $227 per kg. Improving quality control on standard TIM application would likely yield as much improvement for significantly less cost, still it would be worth it to see

I miss the days of mad coolers like peltier devices that accompanied the early Celeron era of overclocking. Looking forward to seeing proper third party teardowns of the cooling solutions on these new boxes.

 

[megre]

Gofreak on RE posted this liquid metal patent from Sony, complete with method to insulate nearby components and keep the LM contained to the chip and heatsink interface.

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search...20162417&tab=FULLTEXT&_cid=P20-KDUB59-01124-1

Edit: apparently Steve from GN has known for a while.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1294354296910290945

I remember the old rumor about Sony not wanting to show the PS5 yet until they are sure they can mass manufacture them.

Maybe it refers to the application of the liquid metal and the application of the resin to protect the circuits and the ultra-violet to dry the resin.

I'm pretty sure it's all automated by their robot manufacturing like the video they showed for the PS4.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The patent is broad enough to cover a lot of bases in terms of the material or how it's applied.

The patent is broad but liquid metal shines when the implementation is specific, i.e. the particular material is engineered for specific environments - ambient temperature, humidity and air pressure - which is a problem in a CE device because people do not use consoles in controlled atmospheres and environments vary quite a lot both within and across countries.

Folks might think liquid metal is a new technology but the use of low melting-temperature materials for heat transfer has been used in the defence aerospace industry for decades. Like a lot of "new" technology, it's an engineering technique that has trickled down from the defence sector. The use of these materials have traditionally been used to measure changes in atmosphere because they are so sensitive to their environment, which ironically are the properties which make them il-suited here.

More likely, liquid metal will be used as a small ratio of a wider compound comprising other good conductors like silver.

 

[3dilettante]

The patent is broad but liquid metal shines when the implementation is specific, i.e. the particular material is engineered for specific environments - ambient temperature, humidity and air pressure - which is a problem in a CE device because people do not use consoles in controlled atmospheres and environments vary quite a lot both within and across countries.

The thermal range would be similar to the liquid metal materials sold for enthusiasts. A consumer device is at once not well-defined, but generally not as extreme as industrial or aerospace uses.
On the lower end, if the material and application are expected to be solid for some period of time, I think it's unlikely any cold temperature survivable by the rest of the machine will damage the TIM. At the upper end, the PS4's max operating temperature is 35 C and we'd expect the SOC to be damaged at 100-115C, which are likely to damage other components as well. Metal alloys may hit their melting point in that range, but should be forgiving at the high temp region compared to the rest of the system.

Oxidation would be a potential threat to the compound, and is likely one source of eventual degradation for enthusiast setups using liquid metal, although mitigations could be possible.

Folks might think liquid metal is a new technology but the use of low melting-temperature materials for heat transfer has been used in the defence aerospace industry for decades. Like a lot of "new" technology, it's an engineering technique that has trickled down from the defence sector. The use of these materials have traditionally been used to measure changes in atmosphere because they are so sensitive to their environment, which ironically are the properties which make them il-suited here.

Various vendors have been citing use as a thermal compound for more general electronics as a goal, although such hopes have been expressed for years. Some of these scenarios involve extreme temperature and pressure changes, for which a console's functional range wouldn't pose a challenge. The chips in aerospace are expected to work at ranges far outside an APU's range, so any compound suitable to them would likely falter in the cost or application in manufacturing stage.

More likely, liquid metal will be used as a small ratio of a wider compound comprising other good conductors like silver.

Silver would be particles suspended in an organic or silicone grease, which would lose some of the benefits of application or resisting thermal pumping. I'm not sure if silver is one of the metals that would show up in an alloy used for this purpose.

 

[anexanhume]

This patent is very comprehensive in the description of what PSVR 2 could be. It talks about wireless transmission, antenna locations and topologies (patch radiators), operation band (60GHz), and has a lot of informative images about how the device operates such as gaze detection, location prediction, beamforming of the RF, etc.


Magnetic, gyroscopic, and accelerometer sensors for positioning. 2.4/5 and 60 GHz comm links, galvanic skin sensors, ultrasonic communications, depth cameras, on-board processing and storage, and other things are all mentioned as possibilities.

Other patents have mentioned reflecting off interior surfaces for LOS obstructions.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/10747306.html

 

[Deleted member 7537]

I think the most interesting part about that patent is that mentions use of VR even for cloud gaming.

In another embodiment, the computer 106 functions as a thin client in communication over a network 112 with a cloud gaming provider 114. In such an implementation, generally speaking, the cloud gaming provider 114 maintains and executes the video game being played by the user 102. The computer 106 transmits inputs from the HMD 102, the directional interface object 104 and the camera 108, to the cloud gaming provider, which processes the inputs to affect the game state of the executing video game

Predictive movement of the HMD as well.

By directing the beamforming direction of the transceiver in a predictive manner, a strong wireless signal can be maintained, as the movements of the HMD 102 will be anticipated and the beamforming direction of the signal will not lag such movements, but can move in a simultaneous and/or anticipatory manner with such movements of the HMD. In the present disclosure, reference is made to the beamforming parameters (e.g. direction and angular spread) of the transceiver 110

 

[anexanhume]

I think the most interesting part about that patent is that mentions use of VR even for cloud gaming.



Predictive movement of the HMD as well.

Predictive movement is essential for beam-forming (steering).

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The thermal range would be similar to the liquid metal materials sold for enthusiasts. A consumer device is at once not well-defined, but generally not as extreme as industrial or aerospace uses.

You would be surprised at the vast differences in atmospheric pressure in the places people live and use consoles, even in a single country like France the spectrum is wide. The use of "liquid metal" in the consumer space is a bit like comparing Ferrari selling a "tuned" sports car and Ferrari's F1 car, where the engineers will tune the engine for the specific racetrack. Lord knows knows what 'average' environment they mix the compound for.

 

[3dilettante]

You would be surprised at the vast differences in atmospheric pressure in the places people live and use consoles, even in a single country like France the spectrum is wide. The use of "liquid metal" in the consumer space is a bit like comparing Ferrari selling a "tuned" sports car and Ferrari's F1 car, where the engineers will tune the engine for the specific racetrack. Lord knows knows what 'average' environment they mix the compound for.

If it were the PS4, the hard drive would imply a ceiling of ~3000m, at least going from articles on users taking their laptops to mountainous regions and warnings from vendors like Dell.
https://www.dell.com/support/articl...ive-failures-caused-by-high-altitudes?lang=en
With an SSD, this concern may be moot, though the performance of the heat sink would be roughly 80% of nominal at that altitude, per the table at the end of the following.
https://www.electronics-cooling.com/1995/06/how-to-select-a-heat-sink/
If Sony opted for the same parameters as the PS4, the PS5 would tolerate any environment that would not kill a laptop drive.

Chemical degradation may be a more pronounced threat, either due to oxidation or the introduction of moisture. Chemical additives or a sealed heatsink interface could prove impractical versus more standard thermal compounds.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

If it were the PS4, the hard drive would imply a ceiling of ~3000m, at least going from articles on users taking their laptops to mountainous regions and warnings from vendors like Dell.

I'm only focusing in the properties of liquid metal and what this type of material was originally engineered for. We had bespoke aerospace solutions depending on where the hardware was being deployed. The HDD failure rates are, I believe, for 3.5" drives. 2.5" drives were originally designed from the outset to be portable and have higher tolerances - it's easier to engineer a smaller controlled atmosphere and some 2.5" drives were built this way, i.e. not just a cleanroom environment or even a vacuum but manufactured to maintain a controlled gaseous atmosphere. That's not to say all 2.5" drives are built like this, they definitely aren't.

 

[3dilettante]

I'm only focusing in the properties of liquid metal and what this type of material was originally engineered for. We had bespoke aerospace solutions depending on where the hardware was being deployed. The HDD failure rates are, I believe, for 3.5" drives. 2.5" drives were originally designed from the outset to be portable and have higher tolerances - it's easier to engineer a smaller controlled atmosphere and some 2.5" drives were built this way, i.e. not just a cleanroom environment or even a vacuum but manufactured to maintain a controlled gaseous atmosphere. That's not to say all 2.5" drives are built like this, they definitely aren't.

I don't have an exhaustive list of HDD models used by the PS4. The PS4devwiki lists a Hitachi and Seagate option. I did find the Seagate techdocs with a 3000m operating ceiling.
The Hitachi reference link seems to have been broken after acquisition by Western Digital, but the PS3devwiki has a summary table with similar information.
https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps4/ST500LM012
https://www.seagate.com/www-content.../spinpoint-m-series/en-us/spinpoint-m8-ds.pdf
https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/HTS545050A7E380

I do not think Sony pursued sealed drives, or if some runs had them they were mixed in a population of consoles with unsealed drives.
The PS5 shouldn't have this as a limitation, except for consistency purposes with prior products or a general approach where Sony's electronic products are not intended to be guaranteed outside common environmental conditions. Even without a spinning HDD, there's no guarantee any other components would be re-evaluated to ensure they wouldn't become the next failure point.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I do not think Sony pursued sealed drives, or if some runs had them they were mixed in a population of consoles with unsealed drives.

I think Sony use pressure-neutral drives. If you look at a drive and it has a little label stated "do not cover this hole", it's a pressure neutral drive. The hole is an aperture to a filter that allows internal and external pressure to equalize whilst preventing particular contamination. This is a common design for higher-tolerance (lower performance) drives.

 

[3dilettante]

I think Sony use pressure-neutral drives. If you look at a drive and it has a little label stated "do not cover this hole", it's a pressure neutral drive. The hole is an aperture to a filter that allows internal and external pressure to equalize whilst preventing particular contamination. This is a common design for higher-tolerance (lower performance) drives.

The main problem I've seen cited for why the drives are given an altitude ceiling is the change in air density affecting the air bearing that keeps the drive head above the surface of the platter. Outside of SSDs or sealed helium drives, the safe operation of the drive assumes a certain air density. An altitude in excess of 3000m would substantially weaken the force keeping the head from impacting the platter.

 

[Lalaland]

The physics of mechanical hdds are an underappreciated marvel imo

 

[chris1515]

https://streamable.com/jbymq5

leaked PS5 ad

 

[London Geezer]

30fps. Cancelling pre-order.

 

[Karamazov]

30fps. Cancelling pre-order.

but nice RT and GI though, looks almost as good as that Hellblade 2 realtime demo running on a real XsX

 

[PSman1700]

What was that for game? Looked intresting.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The main problem I've seen cited for why the drives are given an altitude ceiling is the change in air density affecting the air bearing that keeps the drive head above the surface of the platter.

There's probably a lot of reasons, the less air pressure the less friction which you would think is a good thing but isn't as it makes mechanical devices less predictable. With respect, I'm not interested in HDDs, I'm interested in the metallurgy of liquid metal.

 

[Xbat]

https://streamable.com/jbymq5

leaked PS5 ad

Not a good sign they had to use a CGI trailer? Unless that's a game I haven't heard about.