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Xbox 360 "Falcon" (w/ smaller 65nm chips) to dive-bomb PS3
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7972 Xbox 360 to Get 65nm "Falcon" Makeover This Fall Brandon Hill (Blog) - July 9, 2007 2:17 PM "Yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon." Microsoft prepares 65nm chips for Xbox 360 When it comes to Microsoft's Xbox 360, Dean Takahashi always seems to have the inside scoop. Today, Takahashi confirmed that Microsoft's upcoming 65nm die shrink for the Xbox 360's microprocessor and GPU will is codenamed "Falcon." Takahashi reports that Microsoft is currently qualifying the new Falcon chips along with a redesigned motherboard. The 65nm-equipped Xbox 360s are due to hit store shelves this fall. The new chips are not only smaller and roughly 50 percent cheaper to produce than their 90nm counterpart, but they are also cooler. Cooler- running chips coupled with a revised cooling solution would go a long way to eradicating the Xbox 360's fatal flaw: the Red Ring of Death (RROD). Heat has been a big problem with the Xbox 360 and has been the root cause of RROD cases around the globe. Microsoft has countered the RROD failures by increasing the warranty of the console, adding various "warranty enhancements" and beefed up cooling solutions on new production Xbox 360 units. Microsoft ultimately caved in to mounting pressure from the Xbox 360 community on RROD failures and announced a $1 billion initiative to service Xbox 360s afflicted with the problem and extended warranty coverage for those machines to three years. http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/200...me_falcon.html Microsoft's next move? Code-name Falcon By Dean Takahashi Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 12:02 am in General. Here's a trade secret that Microsoft is unlikely to publicly acknowledge. Sony's cutting the price on the PlayStation 3. How will Microsoft react? We'll find out soon. But a key part of the strategy is going to be a project code-named Falcon. Falcon is the name for the latest internal electronics in the Xbox 360. It will have an IBM microprocessor and an AMD/ATI graphics chip that are manufactured in a 65-nanometer production process. These are cost-reduced chips that do the same thing as their 90-nanometer predecessors, but they're smaller. With smaller chips, Microsoft gets a bunch of benefits. They won't generate as much heat. So the risks of overheating - one of the main reasons behind Microsoft's billion-dollar write-off for repairs and extended warranties - are much lower. The chips may also cost half of what it took to make them before because they use less material and fewer manufacturing steps to produce. Everyone knows that console makers cut the prices and costs on their consoles over time. But you may not be aware that the primary chips - microprocessor, graphics, and the Ana video processing chip - are the bulk of the cost of the machine. Microsoft started making the Xbox 360s in August, 2005, with a 90-nanometer process. It is overdue to switch to the newest technology, 65 nanometers, but that day has finally come. It may be some time - a year, maybe two - before it moves on the a 45-nanometer process. But it's worth it. I recall that Ken Kutaragi said that by moving along the semiconductor manufacturing cost curve with the PlayStation 2, Sony was able to reduce the size - and therefore cost - of the PlayStation 2's original chips to just 13 percent of the original over the life cycle of the PS 2. If you cut the costs on the chips, you can cut the overall cost of the system. You get ancillary benefits such as using a smaller motherboard, more air flow inside the console, and the ability to take the big giant power supply in the Xbox 360's power brick and put it inside the console. Microsoft is in the process of qualifying the new Falcon chips and motherboard this summer. I expect it will launch Xbox 360s with the new Falcon innards this fall. That is why the company has been able to say that it has solved its manufacturing quality problems. Microsoft is likely to spend a little more money on heat sinks to make sure that the overheating problem doesn't resurface with Falcon. The good thing about the smaller chips is that they will likely be easier to make in mass quantities and they shouldn't fail as often. Quality should automatically go up. That's what folks said about the 90-nanometer generation. But the 65-nanometer production process is a known quantity at this point at places such as IBM for sure and possibly at other suppliers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. So rather than fix the problems with the 90-nanometer machine, Microsoft has the easier problem now of getting a 65-nanometer machine to work right. I suspect that is why Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices group, said on Thursday on a conference call with analysts that the company has "its hands around it at the engineering level." But once this machine is in the field, Microsoft will have a few options. It can take the power brick and put it inside the same chassis. It can also make a smaller version of the core, but this involves considerable redesign and retooling resources. And it could also beef up the console and make room for more costly things - as it did with the Elite. It's anybody's guess as to what Microsoft will do with the Falcon as its base platform going forward. But Sony had better watch out. Microsoft is moving ahead of Sony on the cost-reduction curve. It would be risky for Sony to get into a price war with Microsoft. Now it's easier to see why Microsoft still expects to be profitable in fiscal 2008 with the Xbox 360 business. In this fiscal year, Microsoft will introduce a major cost reduction with the Falcon platform. It will launch Halo 3. And it has already written off in fiscal 2007 the costs of repairing consoles for the next few years. Falcon is a fundamental part of the strategy that Microsoft is using to try to beat Sony. Is it going to be good enough to beat Nintendo on costs? Very doubtful. Nintendo can play the cost-reduction game just as Microsoft can. Falcon certainly means that Microsoft can afford to cut the price of the Xbox 360 going forward. Whether it does so depends on how aggressive it wants to be at winning the lead market share in the business. But everyone knows that if you cut your hardware price too much, you lose money. After all, Microsoft lost an estimated $3.7 billion on the original Xbox. When I asked David Hufford, a Microsoft spokesman, about Falcon on Friday, he said I was telling him something new. When I asked Peter Moore, head of games at Microsoft, about Falcon on Thursday, he said, "We have a bunch of different projects that cost reduce and improve quality as you find issues, as does our competition. Once you get millions in the field, you learn about the box under all kinds of different circumstances, you can adjust and tweak what you do accordingly." http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=26521 Microsoft develops new Xbox 360 chipset Mark Androvich 18:51 (BST) 09/07/2007 Reduces overheating risk, cuts costs Microsoft has developed a smaller chipset for the Xbox 360, allowing the manufacturer to cut production costs. Dean Takahasi, writing in the San Jose Mercury News, reports that Microsoft's new chipset is code-named "Falcon." The new chipset has an IBM microprocessor and an AMD/ATI graphics chip that are both manufactured in a 65-nanometer production process. The original chipset was manufactured in a 90-nanometer process. The smaller chipset both reduces the risk of overheating and lowers the production costs associated with the Xbox 360. Microsoft has not yet officially announced an Xbox 360 price reduction, although the move is expected by many analysts, including Michael Pachter. The "Falcon" chipset redesign would certainly be a step towards a price reduction. The Xbox 360 has now been on the market for nearly 20 months without a drop in price. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=14609 July 9, 2007 Report: Microsoft Looks To Cheaper Chips To Lower Xbox 360 Costs Report: Microsoft Looks To Cheaper Chips To Lower Xbox 360 Costs San Jose Mercury News journalist Dean Takahashi has reported that Microsoft could be looking to a new internally redesigned Xbox 360, codenamed 'Falcon,' as a means to not only reduce production costs, but also reduce the console's price at the retail level as well. According to the report, Microsoft plans to replace its current 90- nanometer chip manufacturing process with a less costly 65-nanometer process, resulting in smaller, more efficient microprocessors and graphics chips for the Xbox 360. The result, according to Takahashi, will be internal electronics that generate less heat, and thus result in consoles that are less prone to the infamous 'red ring' general hardware failure error, the driver behind Microsoft's recent warranty extension. The 65-nanometer technology also makes for much more possible room within the Xbox 360 hardware, which the report speculates could be used to house the console's current brick-style power supply in future models. In addition, as the chips themselves make up the bulk of the console's manufacturing costs, the savings from the shift to the new process could eventually be passed along to the consumer by way of a less expensive Xbox 360. When questioned about the Falcon project, Microsoft's Peter Moore declined to confirm such an initiative, instead telling Takahashi, "We have a bunch of different projects that cost reduce and improve quality as you find issues, as does our competition. Once you get millions in the field, you learn about the box under all kinds of different circumstances, you can adjust and tweak what you do accordingly." POSTED: 09.29AM PST, 07/09/07 - Jason Dobson http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/13892/...ts-65nm-Chips/ Code-name Falcon: Xbox 360 Gets 65nm Chips By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar" Jul. 9th, 2007 9:09 am E3 Media & Business Summit 2007 Dean Takahashi has the scoop on the updated Xbox 360 system that will finally make use of the microchips built using the a 65-nanometer manufacturing process: Falcon is the name for the latest internal electronics in the Xbox 360. It will have an IBM microprocessor and an AMD/ATI graphics chip that are manufactured in a 65-nanometer production process. These are cost-reduced chips that do the same thing as their 90-nanometer predecessors, but they're smaller. With smaller chips, Microsoft gets a bunch of benefits. They won't generate as much heat. So the risks of overheating - one of the main reasons behind Microsoft's billion-dollar write-off for repairs and extended warranties - are much lower. The chips may also cost half of what it took to make them before because they use less material and fewer manufacturing steps to produce. http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...298&Ite mid=2 Microsoft Readies Lower-Cost 360 Microsoft is reportedly readying a revised version of the Xbox 360, codenamed 'Falcon', in a bid to reduce production costs. According to a Mercury News report, (a reputable source of Xbox news) Microsoft will switch to a 65-nanometer production process, meaning new consoles will feature smaller microprocessors and graphics chips as opposed to the 90-nanometer processors found in current models. The smaller, more cost-efficient 360 innards will add a range of benefits to the system, while lower production costs would also facilitate any plans for a future price drop. If these new production methods are implemented, overall console reliability would be increased. The risk of overheating, an issue that has strongly been linked to the three red lights of death failure, would also be reduced, while more space would be freed up inside the console itself. The report speculates that this new space could be used to house the current brick of a power supply that comes with 360s. Microsoft is reportedly in the process of qualifying the new Falcon chips and motherboard, with 360s containing Falcon innards expected to hit retail this fall. "We have a bunch of different projects that cost reduce and improve quality as you find issues, as does our competition. Once you get millions in the field, you learn about the box under all kinds of different circumstances, you can adjust and tweak what you do accordingly," said Peter Moore, head of games at Microsoft, when questioned about Falcon. |
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