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quaiky on 15 September 2008
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BottledSpringWater said:
Jo21 said:
FilaBrasileiro said:
heruamon said:
45nm? I thought this was coming this year for the PS3?

45nm RSX is coming out February next year I think, 45nm Cell is already out I think, I think they are working on the 32nm Cell....

 

 

yes.

but i guess mass production won't be here til end 2009

I don't get it.

Why doesn't Sony (or whomever for that matter) just rush to make the 32nm Cell or RSX?

Why do they have to go down sizes in increments?

Couldn't they have went straight from 90nm to, say, 45nm for example?

 

the problem is not the shrinking of the chips, the problme is getting a mass production for that process running. this is what takes a lot time, and for each new shrink many processes have to be improved...

there is no company out there that can mass produce chips in 32 nm yet. intel is running 45nm mass production atm, but not sure if any other chip company can mass produce in 45nm yet. first mass produced 32nm processors will probably not be out there before end of 2009 (and its very likely that itel will be the first company again).

also ibm is using a more complicated SoI  (Silicon on insulator) process for the cell so they are a bit behind intel and taht is probably also the reason why we don't see any 45nm cell in ps3 allready (amd also is not ready for massproduction with 45nm SoI process yet).

since rsx is from nvidia who don't own chip fabs, they have to rely on outside companies to be ready to produce the chips with the wanted process. nvidia is also producing the gtx200 chips also in 65nm still, while ati is allready on 55nm with theri hd4000 series chips.

 

so in short summary sony would probably prefer to have 32nm chips allready but there is no company yet that can massproduce them