PS3 Cell manufacturing process and other technical details

[Everlost_MI]

Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/) has posted (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/20/news_6127799.html) a pretty in-depth interview with Sony's Ken Kutaragi regarding the manufacturing process of the Cell processor as well as other technical details regarding the PS3.

Basically the biggest news out of the article is...

...the Cell microprocessor comes with eight synergistic processor elements (SPEs) for multicore processing, the chip only uses seven of them. Kutaragi explained that ignoring one SPE as a redundancy will improve the chip's production yield and allow costs to drop dramatically. In other words, Sony can ship a Cell chip with one defective SPE (out of its eight) as a working product, since the chip only uses seven SPEs to begin with.

Thanks to Shacknews (http://www.shacknews.com/) for the tip.

[Varsity]

Surely if it to be used for redundancy it won't be defefective, just inactive until another one fails.

Edit: this is now the third thread in a row I've got the first and only post on. You people are so slow!

[BloodAngel]

Gamespot: So tell us how the Cell processor is made Ken

Ken Kutarag: Well as you know the cell is 5000 Times more powerful than a Human brain, that’s because we have cyborgs form the future that use Alien technology that's way beyond the understanding of anyone on the planet...except for me of course.

[Redline]

Gamespot: So tell us how the Cell processor is made Ken

Ken Kutarag: Well as you know the cell is 5000 Times more powerful than a Human brain, that’s because we have cyborgs form the future that use Alien technology that's way beyond the understanding of anyone on the planet...except for me of course.

You forgot the part where he trash talks the 360. ;)

[Stryfe01]

Surely if it to be used for redundancy it won't be defefective, just inactive until another one fails.

Edit: this is now the third thread in a row I've got the first and only post on. So people are so slow!

He clearly states that one of the spe's could be defective because of the non-fault proof manufacturing process. That's when he goes into saying that since they are using 8 SPE's with 7 actually active in the PS3. So he states that they can then use any defective Cell chips. So if they shoot for a Cell with 8, and one SPE doesn't come out right in the process. Then that can, not neccessarily will, be used in the PS3. Other devices can use the same. So if they shoot for 8, and only 2 come out working. the chips is not wasted, it can be used in another device.

[DannoHung]

Two questions:

1) How do they tell the chip which SPE tested out bad? A little jumper on the Cell?

2) if you're one of the lucky bastards that gets a Cell with no bad units, does that mean you'll be able to screw with it to get the 8th SPE working for you?

My guess is no, but I've been suprised before.

[Morratut]

To me it sounds weird when Sony was talking about 'faulty' chips not included in the PS3 but they would put it in something else.

Also can see it now.

Buy your Sony Home Server for video recording,music playing fun for the entire home.Price £550 :eek:

[bapenguin]

I'm guessing their software/hardware simply says there's 7 SPE's there....even if there is 8.

[Ernst_Jager]

Defective hardware that may/may not cause you multiple problems later down the road (much like their horrid optical drives).....sounds just like Sony to me. The only thing they can make hardware wise that is good is their Televisions. I don't know about the rest of you, but telling everyone they might have a defective chip but it is okay because you aren't using the entire thing anyway isn't very good marketing.

[lowlevel]

Kutaragi commented that the PS3's detachable hard drive would most likely be 80GB, since that's the standard capacity of a general 2.5-inch hard drive. "We're going to run an all-purpose OS on it," Kutaragi said, which seems to back up his previous comments that he plans to preinstall Linux on the PS3's HDD.

Kutaragi was asked if he has any plans to add a DVD recorder or home server capability to the PS3. "In that case, you'll need at least one terabyte of disc space" he said. "Even that much space won't be enough if it's going to be HDTV-compliant. To put that much HDD space into this machine is impossible. Rather than to equip some mediocre amount of HDD space, it's better to make it detachable. There's also the possibility of a home server equipped with the Cell chip. But when we first release it as a game machine, we won't need an HDD."
Only a TB, huh? Sounds like home server functionality is right around the corner! :p

As for the use of chips with a defective SPE, I have the same question as others above. Do the SPEs not have an address assigned to each of them? From the sounds of it, every SPE is addressed and treated the same, so that if SPE #3 is dead on one console, the data still gets processed as it would on a console with a Cell chip that has a defective SPE #6. *shrug* Maybe someone more technically-inclined could clarify?

[kokyunage]

::sigh::

Defective hardware is part of the industry people. If you ever had a celeron processor chances are it was some kind of defective processor that just never made it to be a full fledged Pentium. The same goes with graphic cards.

This isn't a Sony conspiracy to screw you over. At least not yet.

[bobbler]

Surely if it to be used for redundancy it won't be defective, just inactive until another one fails.

Edit: this is now the third thread in a row I've got the first and only post on. You people are so slow!

It seems you are misunderstanding the term 'redundancy' in the context of chip production...

[Goronmon]

I can only assume that allowing for one failed SPE must give them a substantial increase in yield during manufacturing, as using the words "defective" and "working product" isn't the best through the eyes of the general public.

[chechenepiphany]

This sounds like a pretty good idea. I also wonder if someone will manage to sucessfully unlock an eigth functional core on their chip. That would be interesting, if it worked. For all we know, sony will make sure the code only allows for 7 cores.

[Kamalot]

I don't know that I can listen to anything Ken Kutaragi says any more. Everything else out of his mouth recently has been nothing but lies and voodoo. :-(

He's destroying the PS3 before it even launches.

[Reanimated]

::sigh::

Defective hardware is part of the industry people. If you ever had a celeron processor chances are it was some kind of defective processor that just never made it to be a full fledged Pentium. The same goes with graphic cards.

This isn't a Sony conspiracy to screw you over. At least not yet.





So is Microsoft making the X360 CPU with 4 cores so that they can put faulty chips into their consoles?

Just curious.

[EvilBob46]

Defective hardware that may/may not cause you multiple problems later down the road (much like their horrid optical drives).....sounds just like Sony to me. The only thing they can make hardware wise that is good is their Televisions. I don't know about the rest of you, but telling everyone they might have a defective chip but it is okay because you aren't using the entire thing anyway isn't very good marketing.

Most modern technology products you can buy are defective in some way. Whether that's LCDs with dead/stuck pixels, whether that's graphics cards with mild to seriously degraded performance without you ever knowing because of defects, etc.

It's simple a fact of life. I believe nVidia and ATI need to trash 20-40% of the cards they make because they are too defective to be sold, but keep a certain amount and bring them to the market if the issues are only minor anyway or release them as lower priced budget cards.

So is Microsoft making the X360 CPU with 4 cores so that they can put faulty chips into their consoles?

Just curious.

I can guarantee you that a sizeable number of XBOX 360's will have defects as well and will still be sold. Of course, you won't know it in 99% of the cases because the product is fine, and neither will you with the PS3.

[bobbler]

So is Microsoft making the X360 CPU with 4 cores so that they can put faulty chips into their consoles?

Just curious.

Don't think they'd need to...

After a bit more reading of the XCPU I don't think it is near the transistor count of the Cell (note: this is in no way reflective of how it performs, so please nobody attack me because of that). By all accounts the XCPU's cores are similar to the PPE on the cell -- I imagine it would be a decent margin below 200m transistors (probably closer to a desktop cpu we have today in terms of transistor count -- 150-170m) -- 1MB cache + 3 PPEs is probably pretty close (the 1MB cache will be taking up a substantial portion of the entire core).

They should do quite fine on yields, in my opinion.

Not all chips need a form of redudancy for yields -- mainly just the ones with silly large transistor counts (the higher the transistor count -- chip size -- the, seemingly, expotenential growth in chance of poor yields).

[chechenepiphany]

It's simple a fact of life. I believe nVidia and ATI need to trash 20-40% of the cards they make because they are too defective to be sold, but keep a certain amount and bring them to the market if the issues are only minor anyway or release them as lower priced budget cards.
Indeed they do. Both companies make plently of cards, and when an X800 pe has a few bad pixel pipes, they aren't going to 86 it. They just lower the clock, lock 2 or 3 more pipes and call it a pro.

[bobbler]

This sounds like a pretty good idea. I also wonder if someone will manage to sucessfully unlock an eigth functional core on their chip. That would be interesting, if it worked. For all we know, sony will make sure the code only allows for 7 cores.

It would be pointless -- even if you could...

It's similar to unlocking the 4 extra pixel pipelines on a 6800 vanilla card and getting a GT out of it, in some respects. Some people get lucky and can do it -- others actually have damaged pipelines (even Cells that have 8 fully functional SPEs will probably find their way into a PS3, with 1 just disabled). Although you could take advantage of it on the 6800, doing it on a Cell (god only knows how you'd do it) in a closed system it wouldn't net you any benefit most likely.

[Reanimated]

I can guarantee you that a sizeable number of XBOX 360's will have defects as well and will still be sold. Of course, you won't know it in 99% of the cases because the product is fine, and neither will you with the PS3.



It seems to me that an Xbox 360 that shipped with one non-functioning core would not go unnoticed.

[Kamalot]

It's simple a fact of life. I believe nVidia and ATI need to trash 20-40% of the cards they make because they are too defective to be sold.
I think herein lies the difference.

If ATI and Nvidia have to trash 20-40% of the cards they produce because they are defective, that’s fine. What is wrong, is selling those 20-40% of cards to consumers and telling people there is nothing wrong with them.

Your dead-pixel analogy also comes into play. If, during the manufacturing process, dead pixels occur, fine. If your device has 12 dead pixels on it and you sell it to consumers, telling them that it is acceptable, you are lying. 12 dead pixels is a completely unacceptable number for any sized screen. That screen should be scrapped and chocked up as a loss, much like ATI and Nvidia have to throw out a sizeable percentage of their cards.

Sony’s 13-dead pixel threshold on the PSP is a complete joke and an insult to consumer sensibilities.

[Reanimated]

Sony’s 13-dead pixel threshold on the PSP is a complete joke and an insult to consumer sensibilities.




I agree with that, and I'm also not quite comfortable with this plan they seem to have to just put defective chips into "working" PS3s.

[Ernst_Jager]

Sorry your new car only runs on 5 cylinders. Sure you would get the extra performance out of the full 6 but really you will get along just fine with 5.

My biggest complaint with Sony is they really enjoy sticking it to their customers. I went thru 3 PS2's in about 2 years and finally just gave up. I don't think I should have to go thru the trouble of fixing it myself or sending it off every 4 months to be repaired. The way Ken is talking, it just sounds like more of the same from them.

[EvilBob46]

It seems to me that an Xbox 360 that shipped with one non-functioning core would not go unnoticed.

But that's because then the console wouldn't work as intended (or not work at all).

If you buy a PS3 that has 7 functional cores, but 1 is defect, the console would still run all games you have at full speed and there is no reason why it wouldn't last as long as a PS3 that has 8 functional cores (although the later might last longer if for any reason one of its cores dies, but just a single one going out after production with the rest being okay seems unlikely). For all intends and purposes, the end result is the same and you could go on for eternity without ever knowing.

Your argument revolves around the fact that you somehow feel cheated because an insignificant and unused piece of the hardware you purchased doesn't work. If you really care this much about whether your home console has that extra unused core, by all means don't buy it, but I'm inclined to say that 90% of customers out there are going to make their console purchase decision based on more sane factors like the games and performance of a console.

I think herein lies the difference.

If ATI and Nvidia have to trash 20-40% of the cards they produce because they are defective, that’s fine. What is wrong, is selling those 20-40% of cards to consumers and telling people there is nothing wrong with them.


Like I said, a sizeable number of those are being sold to people as lower priced cards, ATI/nVidia just never mention the defects to their customers. There was also a small scandal a while back with Geforce 6600s being sold to customers that performed considerable worse than they should have because of defects, and it was by pure coincidence that this case actually came out (I wouldn't want to know how many never do).

That I think is the only difference here: that Sony Kwhatever guy actually (stupidly) told people the means by which he and his company work around defects while still producing products that are on par with nondefects, while 90% of other hardware companies do not and follow the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

[DannoHung]

Look up "part binning" if you think this practice is uncommon.

I think the only unusual thing here is that the PS3 is like the tippity-top-of-the-line unit being sold and they're saying that they're going to bin the minorly defective ones with the totally non-defective ones.

[bobbler]

To clear a few things up:

Defective chips that don't work 100% will simply not be used at all. It's not as if you'll get a chip with errors in it that'll cause something to crash -- it simply doesn't work that way. One SPE gets disabled because on average there will be one that will probably be bad -- if there is more than one SPE that is bad then the chip doesn't go into the PS3. A Cell with 8 working SPEs and 1 disabled is not any better than a Cell with 7 working SPEs and one disabled.

This is very common practice for any company wanting to get better yields out of a product -- the existance of the X700, X800pro, 6800vanillas are perfect examples of this. You can call them defective if you want, but that isn't exactly a good term for it -- because they work 100% to what they are sold as; defective would imply that they aren't up to the standards/specs they are sold as. AMD, Intel, Nvidia, ATI, etc, etc all do this. Without this technique, we wouldn't have half the chips we do now, because they just wouldn't be feasible cost wise.

Statements like this:
Sorry your new car only runs on 5 cylinders. Sure you would get the extra performance out of the full 6 but really you will get along just fine with 5.

Are completely absurd and don't even make sense if you look at the situation. The PS3 is a 1PPE 7SPE system -- no matter if the Cells going into it had 8 functional SPEs, one is going to be destroyed and non working. It is sold as a 7SPE system, so it is not as if you aren't getting everything you paid for.


I think the only unusual thing here is that the PS3 is like the tippity-top-of-the-line unit being sold and they're saying that they're going to bin the minorly defective ones with the totally non-defective ones.

That actually isn't unusual. A lot of the binned parts for Intel and Nvidia, for example, are perfectly functional and just have things disabled to meet the demand of that specific part -- supply wise. It is why you can buy a 6800 and softmod it to a GT/Ultra. Or, the P3 era Celerons, which are just normal P3s with half the cache disabled (the cache was disabled regardless of whether it worked fine or not).

As time goes on PS3s with 8 previously full functional SPEs will be more common (although 1 will still be disabled for the entire lifetime of the PS3).

[Stryfe01]

A Cell with 8 working SPEs and 1 disabled is not any better than a Cell with 7 working SPEs and one disabled.
.

OK. Let's correct this. Your argument is almost correct. A Cell FOR the PS3 will be manufactured with 8 SPE's, one disabled for redundancy. Now, what Kenny K. was saying is that if they are making Cell chips for PS3 or OTHER devices, utilizing more 8 or more SPE's...If by chance one of the 8 is defective, then it can still be used in a PS3 or another device. Specifically in a PS3 because it works on 7 with one disabled\non-working SPE. It's an exciting aspect of the design because it means less waste from the production line. Where he went wrong was actually telling us that they will do that. Perception is a motherf****r!




Official PS3 Specs

Here are the official technical specifications for the PS3, taken directly from Sony:

CPU
Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU
RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)
Memory
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance
2 TFLOPS

Storage
Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1

I/O
USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1

Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)

AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

Disc Media
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

[DannoHung]

That actually isn't unusual. A lot of the binned parts for Intel and Nvidia, for example, are perfectly functional and just have things disabled to meet the demand of that specific part -- supply wise. It is why you can buy a 6800 and softmod it to a GT/Ultra. Or, the P3 era Celerons, which are just normal P3s with half the cache disabled (the cache was disabled regardless of whether it worked fine or not).

As time goes on PS3s with 8 previously full functional SPEs will be more common (although 1 will still be disabled for the entire lifetime of the PS3).

Oh, I know that it happens, I'm just saying, I don't think that the Ultra cards (tippity-top-of-the-line) usually have any defects and I'm pretty sure that the PS3 is the primo Cell platform. I mean, it's not like there's going to be a PS3 Ultra.

[StrifeSnake13*]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what sony is doing, you get 7 working SPE's ether way; they wont give you 6, if two are broken then sony will use them in dual cell home servers; it makes sense and it's very smart on sonys part.

This cuts production cost and allows sony to make use of all their chips; it saves Sony money and ultimately saves the consumers money.

[mister_slim]

Hasn't this already come up several times? Not that I mind having actually knowledgeable people posting on this thread.