IBM shifts Cell to 65 nanometres

The company said it has begun producing the new version of the Cell Broadband Engine at IBM's state-of-the-art East Fishkill, New York production facility.

The Cell design, which was jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, is effectively a supercomputer-on-a-chip, IBM reckons and as well as playing games is good for medical imaging, design engineering and other graphics-intensive applications.

In addition to famously serving at the heart of Sony Computer Entertainment's Playstation 3, the chip also appears in IBM's Bladecenter servers.

This should enable Sony to significantly reduce costs of the Playstation 3 console, steps the firm has already taken with the removal of the Emotion Engine processor within the European version of the console.

Don't expect a price drop anytime soon though - Sony reportedly loses $300 per console.

IBM also plans to introduce Power 6 server chips on its 65nm manufacturing technology later this year.

Intel has been making 65nm chips since 2005, while AMD started pushing out chips at that level of lithography late last year. Intel is expected to push out 45nm processors in 2008, if not before. µ

L'Inq
IBM press release