Sony to invest $1.7 billion in chip production

TODAY MUST BE Sony news day. Strange that the company should choose what is a holiday in most of its markets, but there you go. The firm splashing some serious cash about over the next three fiscal years to get its chip facilities up to snuff. According to Sony, this is all about getting it capable of producing its new cell processors.

The cell processors are a joint effort between Sony, Toshiba and IBM. They're what is set to drive the Playstation 3 Playstation 4. The money is being spent on upgrading the Oita Toshiba/Sony Semiconductor plant. That plant is going online with the new 90nm PS2-on-a-chip sometime in the next few months. The new money is being spent on switching to a 300mm wafer 65nm embedded DRAM process.

With a little careful word watching, you might have noticed that the money is being spent over the next three fiscal years. Count those up and you've got the process coming online in 2005 if all goes to plan.

The big question is whether that will be early enough to make it in time for the Playstation 3. That seems unlikely. µ

Also see
Sony makes PS2 on a chip
Playstation 3 delayed until 2007