PS3 Precursor Chip Close to Sample Production
- January 28, 2004 15:14 PM PST
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Toshiba and Sony are about to begin trial production of their 65nm chip.
Toshiba and Sony are about begin trial production of semiconductor chips that will be the precursor to the Cell chip that is expected to be used in the PlayStation 3. The manufacturing process is more advanced than any in commercial use today, requiring the construction of a new production facility.Junichi Nagaki, a spokesman for Toshiba, has stated that the trial production of sample chips using the 65-nanomter (one nanometer is a billionth of a meter) technology will begin in 2004. The company will produce system LSI (large scale integrated circuit) chips on a trial line at its Yokohama, Japan, factory and distribute them to customers for evaluation purposes. Commercial production is not expected to begin until the first half of Toshiba's 2005 fiscal year, which is from April to 2005, said the spokesman.
The chips will be manufactured in a new factory currently under construction at Toshiba's plant in Oita prefecture, Japan. The factory, which will process 300-milimeter wafers, is expected to be completed in January 2004, with production on a 90-nanometer process beginning in mid-2004. Production will then be upgraded to handle the 65-nanometer process.
"This is the fundamental technology for 65-nanometer chips," said Shinji Obana, a spokesman for Sony in Tokyo. He said the two companies have already succeeded in producing a sample system LSI that also contains 32M bits of embedded memory. "We tested the device and it works correctly."
The system LSI chips, while falling short of a prototype Cell processor, will be one of the first steps that Sony needs to take towards mass production of the chip, he said.
Other companies have just begun to switch from 130-nanometer generation technology to 90-nanometer technology, with NEC Electronics announcing in November plans to invest 60 billion yen (US$545 million) on building a 90-nanometer line at its factory in Yamagata prefecture to begin production in late 2004.
The smaller nanometer measure is significant because as the resolution gets finer, more components can be crammed onto a chip's surface, leading to more powerful chips that consume less power.
Given that Toshiba expects commercial production of the chip to start on April 2005 at the earliest, we can expect production of the PS3 to start no earlier than mid-2005.
