PS3 internals

[mtkc]

I don't understand why sony put in a separate SATA controller when they could just have used one of those parallel to dserial converter things that wrere so common when SATA was brand new. Those were by all reports cheap effective and had no discernible performance impact.

Heck the first raptor harddrive was by far the fastest unit at the tiem and it used one integrated right on the PCB as I recall..

Peace.

The Marvell SATA chip you see on the PS3 board is PATA to SATA bridge, not a dedicated SATA controller. Code is 88SA8040. http://www.marvell.com/products/storage/sata/SerialATAII_88SM4140.pdf

This lends even more credibility to the I/O chip being the SCC.

 

[bobthebub]

Just found another teardown (sorry if old, couldn't find it on here) that may be of some interest, a lot of pics and some more chip close-ups, seems to suggest the PS1 chip is still on board which I didn't think would have been necessary.

Techrepublic - Cracking open the PS3

 

[Shifty Geezer]

a lot of pics and some more chip close-ups, seems to suggest the PS1 chip is still on board

What makes you think that? As the PS1 chip has been replaced in the PS2, I find it incredibly improbably they'd have it in a PS3!

 

[bobthebub]

One of the pics is labelled as follows:-

System battery connector (white) and PlayStation 1 chip

No idea if they are correct or not though.

 

[INKster]

One of the pics is labelled as follows:-

System battery connector (white) and PlayStation 1 chip

No idea if they are correct or not though.

"CRX" is usually part of a Sony optical disc drive name, so that chip may have something to do with it, since it starts with "CRX" too.

 

[Rangers]

There's a pic in there of "1GB of flash memory". Does the PS3 have that much flash? The Xbox360?

Never mind I guess it is 128 Mbyte. Still, didn't know about that.

 

[Fox5]

There's a pic in there of "1GB of flash memory". Does the PS3 have that much flash? The Xbox360?

It's probably 1Gigabit and contains the OS and stuff.

 

[Crossbar]

There's a pic in there of "1GB of flash memory". Does the PS3 have that much flash? The Xbox360?

Never mind I guess it is 128 Mbyte. Still, didn't know about that.

The PS3 mainboard contains 256 MByte flash memory in total, here is a nice component breakdown.

 

[Arwin]

The PS3 mainboard contains 256 MByte flash memory in total, here is a nice component breakdown.

I'm wondering if it conains a built in backup (it can format an unformatted disc and such) or if that's all just for straightforward OS features. The PSP also has 2 flash banks, if I remember correctly.

 

[Hezz]

Now that we have heard about "Home". Is it possible that the DDR that seems connected with the SCC is anouther memory space for Home to run without using XDR. Or is it more likely that this extra DDR is used for helping the SCC to emulate PS2 I/O hardware compatibility.

Also, is this DDR only on the developer SDK consoles or is it on all PS3 models.

 

[Sousuke]

The PS3 mainboard contains 256 MByte flash memory in total, here is a nice component breakdown.

from that pdf, there seems to be a 128Gb SRAM on the WIFI board - but I guess thats a typo

Hezz: I think you're a little confused, what are you talking about?

 

[Panajev2001a]

from that pdf, there seems to be a 128Gb SRAM on the WIFI board - but I guess thats a typo

Hezz: I think you're a little confused, what are you talking about?

It's a typo in the Chipworks's PDF, if you look that part up (IS42S32400B) you'll see it is a 128 Mbits SDRAM chip.

 

[Hezz]

Yeah, reviewing the doc I do see that also.

Well, I guess a good question would be if on the existing pics of the PS3 motherboard layout, DDR memory modules are visible in close proximity to the SB chip.

EDIT: Luckily, we're in the right thread to get those questions answered. Here's the link to the motherboard layout:

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1111/ps3_32.jpg

Indeed, it seems as if the SB does have an associated outboard DDR2 memory module associated with it; and then next to that, a Samsung module that if I didn't know better I would say looks like traditional DDR.

EDIT 2: The chip in between the Samsung module and the SCC must just be something else, because the Samsung chip definitely seems to be RAM from the text indicators on the chip itself.

Sorry guys, this is an idea got from some of the discussion a page or two back in the thread. There seemed to be a DDR chip in close proximity to the SB (southbridge ?). Or the SCC as Sony has been calling it.

I guess since Sony has stated that they want to built a media PC based on the PS3, the overkill of the SCC seems in order as it would allow more DDR2 to be installed which I would assume would be used by Linux or other software than games. Since game hardware specs would need to remain standardized.

This lead me to speculate that perhaps Sony had intended for a small DDR chip to function as a RAM space for Home. But most likely it is just used for some kind of PS2 hardware I/O emulation.