Toshiba's New Chip inside PS3!

Ok, so no PSX 2... did they remember to throw salt on the crumbled grounds of the PSX division's offices ?

So, no PLAYSTATION 3 based Home Server ? Maybe too early to say.

Still, Mr.Charlie should be happy, he now owns a collector item .

 

Some of these ports and buses on the chip don't make sense for PS3, like Firewire, PCI Express, and the video out, but then again, those things do not have to be used, but cost reasons one would expect a part to be more specific, so either a more specific chip from Toshiba or another chip altogeather.

Note, just because it have video out, does not mean it has to be used, as video out on the PS3 is through the RSX. I doubt the ATA ports are needed also.

I'm curious as to Sony's notebook and desktop PC's are they using a "southbridge" from Sony or another manufacturer?

Might be better for Sony to go for a Toshiba part, if they do not have the expertise in this area, and as Sony behaviour has shown so far with PS3, they are strongly interested in going with other companies tech, if it's superior to their own.

 

Wasn't there an announcement long ago that there will be a PS3 console and a workstation based on the same technology? This chip would be perfect for something like that.

Fredi

 

The SCC info is relatively old news:

Old thread link

What's new is the article claiming it'll be in the PS3. Given what we know about it, that doesn't seem very likely, but until the actual hardware ships we'll have to wait and see.

I couldn't find the article with the picture of the motherboard without spending more time looking than I wanted to, but I think it was from an article someone here posted.

 

As McFly said, this chip would probably not be bad for a CELL based Work-Station and since Toshiba already manufactures it for their own A/V equipment if they manufactured it (maybe in SCE-Toshiba's Oita plants) for PLAYSTATION 3 as well as for the CELL WorkStation (PLAYSTATION 3 SDK, etc...) they could get some dcecent volumes.

I guess my rule of thumb at this time, it might be very wrong too though, is that if SCE can manufacture it in a fully owned or partially owned fab it "could" make sense to use it in PLAYSTATION 3 (over the same functional block bought from a third party... higher chance of cost reduction and R&D costs for the built fabs spread out over more chips).

 

Does anyone else see the irony of Toshiba providing an audio/video I/O chip for the BluRay equipped PS3?

 

It`s not irony ,it`s "Plan B"

 

Sort of like a certain chip manufacturer who had to go to an outside provide for a graphics chip after spending years claiming their own chips were far superior to anything an outside company could provide?

PS3 seems like an awful lot of "Plan B"

 

Diversified

If it is true then maybe it is form of "diversified" investment no? Also CELL is Sony, Toshiba, & IBM ... STI.

 

I did not think of Plan B for Sony, I meant Toshiba.

 

PS2 = outside chip

PS2 also used outside chip for renderer no? Like PS3 PS2 was OS core with vector units and seperate renderer from outside source. I think main difference between PS2 and PS3 concept is now vector unit is not just vector unit and renderer (also outside source like PS2) has programmable shader function.

 

The GS, as well as PSP's GPU, are clearly Sony in-house design (the clipping implementation or lackthereof, not to speak about other things, do betray them ... jokes aside, they are in-house designs) with help from an external provider for the physical implementation (it was Simplex Solutions).

 

One of the interesting (from a gadget geek POV) rumors or speculations is that Sony will integrate its LocationFree features into the PS3, so that you can stream AV content to the PSP over Wifi or over the Internet.

Certainly the Cell could probably encode something like H.264 at lower than SD resolutions (for portable devices with little better than QVGA screens). But maybe the SCC will let you bring in AV inputs?

But the PS3 isn't expected to have any kind of video or audio inputs right?