PS3 BE Possible: First Chip over 1 Billion Transitors!

[Farid]

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2004_06/pr1601.htm

Thanks for the heads-up Quaz51.

From the Toshiba PR annoucement

In addition to the elemental technologies announced today, Toshiba is working with Sony group on 45-nanometer process technologies for next generation system LSI, including embedded memory technology.

New technologies

1) MOSFET (metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor):
Improved device performance and lower power consumption requires reduction of the power supply voltage. Such an approach requires a thinner film of oxide, which is more prone to current leakage. This has proved to be a major issue.

Toshiba's new MOSFET has an ultra-thin gate oxide film. The EOT (equivalent oxide thickness) is less than 1nm thick and 1.5-order reduction in current leakage is realized from conventional SiON film. The new film was achieved by optimizing the oxide film process technology, and it solves the problem of performance deterioration due to increased leakage current with a thinner oxide film. The MOSFET achieves superior characteristics: a drive current of 820uA/um has been obtained for an NMOSET, and of 300uA/um for a PMOSFET at 0.85V (Ioff=50nA/um).

2) Multi Layer Wiring:
Toshiba has found the optimized wiring parameters in terms of operating frequency and power consumption for 45 nm generation system LSI. The new technology demonstrates a 130nm pitch of the first metal layer, a 72% shrink from the 65nm generation.

So, the people who said that STI were originaly aiming to 45nm when designing their Cell CPU (BE), even if the firsts samples were made with the 65nm tech, were maybe right...

 

[Megadrive1988]

according to various sources, perhaps Sony themselves through the media, the old plan circa 1999-2000 for Emotion Engine 3 was for a half billion transistors. 500 million, on 0.010 micron / 10 nm process.

now with the EE3 / BE being on 0.065 / 65 nm process, edit: or even perhaps 0.045 / 45 nm process, do you think that ~double the transistors is possible, or even likely?

of course, transistors does not indicate performance. look at what the Emotion Engine can push (floating point) with only 13 million transistors, or the SH-4 with just 3.2 million

what will really be important is, sustained floating point performance. the SH-4 seems really efficient. of its 1.4 GFLOPs peak performance, it can sustain 900 MFLOPs. wonder what the EE can sustain from its 6.2 GFLOP peak... 1~3 GFLOPs ?

 

[zidane1strife]

I think I heard it was like 5G, not sure, someone else should confirm the exact number.


As for possible 45nm, if they are REALLY REALLY lucky and manage to escape heat/power/area problems through the use of advanced materials, tech, and design. They could clock it a bit higher, and maybe even beef up the design some more.

 

[Megadrive1988]

this thread needs the heavy hitters to weigh in 8)