Xbox 360's 'Xenon' CPU die-shrink to 65nm delayed until mid 2007

[AirRaid]

65nm Xbox 360 CPUs delayed until mid-2007

Monica Chen, Taipei; Rodney Chan, DigiTimes.com [Tuesday 26 December
2006]

According to industry sources, plans to produce CPUs for the Microsoft
Xbox 360 game console on 65nm at Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing
will be pushed back until the middle of 2007, at least one quarter
behind the original schedule.

Microsoft Taiwan declined to comment on the news, while Chartered also
declined to comment, stating it did not comment on the production
schedule of any of its customers.

In April 2006, Chartered announced that it had signed an agreement with
Microsoft to manufacture CPUs for the Xbox 360 console on 65nm
Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology starting in the first quarter of
2007.

Chartered is already a major foundry partner for producing Microsoft's
Xbox 360 CPUs on 90nm technology.

http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20061225PD211.html


________________


65nm Xbox 360 CPU refresh delayed until mid-2007?

Posted Dec 26th 2006 1:29PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Gaming
Bad news for those potential Xbox fanboys out there waiting for a
cooler and less power-hungry Xbox before they spring for that nifty
white box: DigiTimes is reporting that Microsoft's upcoming 65nm
processors -- the current 360s are running those oh-so-2005 90nm chips
-- have been delayed, and won't be making it off the production line
until mid-2007, at least a quarter after current projections. Of
course, the main source of noise on the box is really the disc drive,
and we hope this doesn't mean Microsoft will hold off much longer on a
price cut (no, not that price cut) but we really wouldn't mind a little
bit of modern processor tech in this thing, so we'll hope Chartered
Semiconductor Manufacturing, Microsoft's partner in chip-building
crime, will pull through on this one and deliver those 65nm chips right
on schedule.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/26/65nm-xbox-360-cpu-refresh-delayed-until-mid-2007/

____________



Microsoft Xbox 360 Console Cost Reduction Delayed - Rumour.
Chartered Postpones Mass Production of 65nm Processor for Xbox 360

Category: Multimedia

by Anton Shilov

[ 12/26/2006 | 10:12 AM ]

Chartered Semiconductor, a leading contract semiconductor manufacturer,
may postpone the beginning of mass production of central processing
units (CPUs) for the Xbox 360 game console from Microsoft at thinner
process technology. If the information is correct, Microsoft will be
unable to decrease manufacturing cost of the console.

Sources with knowledge of the matter reportedly revealed to DigiTimes
web-site that Chartered plans to produce CPUs for Microsoft Xbox 360
game console using 65nm fabrication process only in the middle of 2007,
which is, at least, a quarter behind the original production schedule.

Both Chartered and Microsoft announced in April, 2006, that the former
will manufacture the 65nm version of Xbox 360 three-core microprocessor
based on the PowerPC architecture in Q1 2007.

Currently Chartered and IBM produce Xbox 360 microprocessors using 90nm
fabrication process and while yields of the chip have increased greatly
since the initiation of production, 65nm process technology would allow
to further cut down the cost of the processor, which would provide
further opportunities to reduce the cost of the console itself.

According to iSuppli's most recent analysis, the premium version of
the Xbox 360 game machine equipped with hard disk drive has a
manufacturing and materials total of $323.30, based on an updated
estimate using costs in the fourth quarter of 2006. This total is
$75.70 less than the $399 suggested retail price of the Xbox 360. A
year ago the total bill of materials (BOM) cost for the Xbox 360
Premium, including hard disk, the DVD drive, enclosures, the Radio
Frequency (RF) receiver board, power supply, wireless controller,
cables, literature, and packaging, reached $525, well above the retail
price of $399.

Microsoft Xbox 360 console is based around triple-core microprocessor
developed by IBM, high-definition visual processing unit designed by
ATI Technologies featuring unified shader architecture, I/O controller
engineered by SiS and some other key components. The gaming machine
provides a broad set of multimedia capabilities, including
high-definition movies and TV programs downloads in addition to games.
Microsoft Xbox 360 core without hard drive is currently priced at $299,
whereas the model featuring 20GB HDD and wireless controller has
recommended price of $399 in Europe and the U.S. Microsoft also offers
HD DVD add-on drive for the console for $199.

Chartered and Microsoft did not comment on the news-story.


http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20061226101150.html


______________



Sources: 65nm Xbox 360 CPUs Delayed Until Mid-2007
By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar"
Dec. 26th, 2006 8:33 am

Industry sources have revealed to DigiTimes that plans to manufacture
the Xbox 360 three-core CPU using a 65-nanometer manufacturing
technology have been pushed back until the middle of 2007.

Back in April, Microsoft signed an agreement with Chartered, one of the
world's top dedicated semiconductor foundries, for the manufacturing of
a 65-nanometer version of the Xbox 360 CPU using Silicon-on-Insulator
(SOI) semiconductor technology. Production was expected to begin in the
first quarter of 2007.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/12487/Sources-65nm-Xbox-360-CPUs-Delayed-Until-Mid2007/

 

[Joe Seigh]

Bad news for those potential Xbox fanboys out there waiting for a
cooler and less power-hungry Xbox before they spring for that nifty

"cooler and less power-hungry"? I doubt it. They'll just clock it
up to improve performance, negating most of the energy savings they
would have gotten otherwise.

 

[Thomas Womack]

"cooler and less power-hungry"? I doubt it. They'll just clock it
up to improve performance, negating most of the energy savings they
would have gotten otherwise.

I think that's unlikely; part of the joy of programming consoles is
that the specification is completely fixed, things like clock speeds
included. Sony went through several revisions of the Playstation 2,
which started off as two large 180nm ASICs and is now a single 90nm,
without changing clock speeds at all.

Tom

 

[AirRaid]

"cooler and less power-hungry"? I doubt it. They'll just clock it
up to improve performance, negating most of the energy savings they
would have gotten otherwise.

No they won't do that. The purpose of making the chip on a smaller
process, shrinking it down, is to get the same performance but running
cooler and using less electricity, getting higher yields / more chips
that work / less defective chips / reducing cost of the CPU and thus
the whole console, allowing for easier pricecuts to the MSRP. They
won't even increase the performance because that's not what they do
with consoles. every console as the same specifications.

 

[krw]

No they won't do that. The purpose of making the chip on a smaller
process, shrinking it down, is to get the same performance but running
cooler and using less electricity, getting higher yields / more chips
that work / less defective chips / reducing cost of the CPU and thus
the whole console, allowing for easier pricecuts to the MSRP. They
won't even increase the performance because that's not what they do
with consoles. every console as the same specifications.

That's old-think. Modern consoles (Nintendo excluded, by
definition) aren't clock limited. Only an idiot would do timing
loops these days.