Cell Hits 45nm, PS3 Price Drop Likely to Follow

Septimus writes "At this weeks ISSCC, IBM announced that the Cell CPU used in the PlayStation 3 will soon make the transition to IBM's next-gen 45nm high-k process. 'The 45nm Cell will use about 40 percent less power than its 65nm predecessor, and its die area will be reduced by 34 percent. The greatly reduced power budget will cut down on the amount of active cooling required by the console, which in turn will make it cheaper to produce and more reliable (this means fewer warrantied returns). Also affecting Sony's per-unit cost is the reduction in overall die size. A smaller die means a smaller, cheaper package; it also means that yields will be better and that each chip will cost less overall.'"

The Little and the Big

[cthulu_mt]

I don't know what it is about measuring things in nanometers and terabytes that gives me such a hardon.

Thank you IBM.

PS: Please don't put Skynet online.

Effect on cost

[noidentity]

Cell Hits 45nm, PS3 Price Drop Likely to Follow

"[...] The greatly reduced power budget will cut down on the amount of active cooling required by the console, which in turn will make it cheaper to produce and more reliable (this means fewer warrantied returns). Also affecting Sony's per-unit cost is the reduction in overall die size. A smaller die means a smaller, cheaper package; it also means that yields will be better and that each chip will cost less overall.'"

My only question is, will this reduce the cost?

Re:Effect on cost

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It will still require 3.4 units of your eternal soul to acquire one.

Re:oh, hum. What else is happening?

[bonkeydcow]

Moore's law is dead. Atoms aren't getting any smaller. With 5 atoms thick, when you try and go to 2.5 atoms thick, let me know and I'll get far away.

Re:The Little and the Big

[Goblez]

This same comment in a few years will sound perverted if updated to use larger scales of magnitude.

"I don't know what it is about measuring things in picometers and petabytes that gives me such a hardon".

Re:Effect on cost

[hamburger lady]

Imagine a macbook powered by something like this, 45nm, 8 cores, low power usage, cheap... it'd outstrip every laptop known to man.


or a group of them! a "cluster", if you will. maybe, for a lark, you could name this cluster after some mythical hero of old. that would be awesome.

imagine a gilgamesh cluster of those!

Re:Effect on cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it IS a mac...

Re:The Little and the Big

[adpowers]

The only thing I can think of after reading your comment is Europe's Large Hardon Collider.