IBM produce slimmer PS3 chip

Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 13 March 2007 12:25

Opinion and Analysis

The Cell Broadband Engine manufactured by IBM has been reduced by 28% to save on size, power and money.

IBM corp have announced the move to producing a more advanced take on the Cell chip, reducing the manufacturing process from using the 90-nanometre to a 65-nanometre process.

The Cell chip is the heart of IBM’s QS20 BladeCentre systems.  From a broader commercial aspect, the Cell chip is the powerful processor in the Sony PS3.

If there have been some criticisms of Sony of late around the design of the PS3, it has been both in the size of the box and the recent furore over the removal of the Emotion engine chip for backwards compatibility of PS2 and PSone games.

This move was cited at saving the company a small amount (AU$27) per console manufactured, with backwards compatibility achieved through software emulation instead of hardware.

The new manufacturing process will – eventually – save Sony further in hardware costs, and may even lead to a physical redesign of the entertainment box, making it more attractive to living room asthetics.