'Emotion' overload for Sony?
zdnet.com
Some quotable quotes from the article:
Industry analysts question whether the Emotion Engine -- the chip that powers Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE - news)'s next gaming device unofficially dubbed the Playstation 2 -- will cost too much or be too hard to mass produce.
...
The Emotion Engine is 238 square millimeters, a monster by processor standards. Its companion chip, a graphics synthesizer, is even larger. Together, the two are large enough to "give most semiconductor manufacturers a bad case of heartburn," said Keith Diefendorff, a senior analyst at chip technology researcher MicroDesign Resources Inc.
While the 128-bit chip has only 10 percent more transistors than a Pentium III, it will be 80 percent larger. That means higher costs and, it could mean Sony won't satisfy initial demand for the Playstation 2.
And here's a clip from one of the more reasonable Talkback posts regarding this article:
People seem to forget that Sony is a consumer electronics, not a semiconductor company. They are relying on Toshiba, which has never had a successful line of cutting-edge logic ICs(remember their Mpact efforts, anybody?), to outdo both IBM Micro and Intel and fabricate a huge and complex chip on a bleeding-edge process, at a consumer price point.
Is there any reason to believe that Sony/Toshiba will succeed? "If anyone can, Sony can" is about as sensible as saying "if anybody can make DVD work it's Intel". Intel is not a consumer electronics company. Sony is not a semiconductor company.
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