360 to go 65nm in Autumn.?.?.

unklerosco

From Bit-tech....

News on the wire over at Digitimes has said that the Xbox 360's Xenos graphics chip will be getting a bit smaller come fall. According to equipment manufacturers in China, the new version of the chip has already been taped out and will begin production soon.

The original Xenos chip, designed by ATI, was manufactured using TSMC's 90nm fab process. The new tape-out will bring the chip down to 65nm and is set to begin full production this month. According to reports, sales of the new chip will amount to 5% of TSMC's profits for mid-year, so apparently sales of the 360 aren't down all that much after all.

The die shrink will bring all the usual benefits to the 360, including lower electricity usage and thus a drop in thermal output. This may be some good news to budding Xbox 360 owners, as current owners have been complaining about the heat output of the console.

Whether or not the decrease in production cost drops the price of the end unit will be anyone's guess - we may just need to wait until fall for that. Until then, do you have a thought on the die shrink?

Whens the Elite due out over here??? 65nm means less heat, less noise, more sanity...

mcgovern

The elite probably won't be out here til they release IPTV.
It doesn't have the 65nm chip though.

unklerosco

I know, thinking that by the time its released they'll have gone 65nm.... Wonder if it'll be possible to tell or if its just luck as to which one you'll get.

koneko

Last I'd heard on the Elite release for Europe was July-ish? But that was a rumour. Don't hold your breath on seeing the die shrink in that though, I suspect we won't see that phased in here until later in the year.

Fingleberries

koneko wrote:

Last I'd heard on the Elite release for Europe was July-ish? But that was a rumour. Don't hold your breath on seeing the die shrink in that though, I suspect we won't see that phased in here until later in the year.

True. I'd say you'll see a push of the new 'smaller' X-Boxes either 1) before Christmas so it's something 'new' to push at the end of the year or 2) just after Christmas, so shops can clear out their older / bigger models.

Knowing the retail trade in Ireland, I'd see option 2 as the most likely outcome.

Ciaran500

These Xbox's won't be any smaller, they'll just have chips that use less energy and create less heat.

unklerosco

exactly... the cpu is all that'll shrink....

Fnz

Good thing too... one of the reasons for the overheating of the 360 is the small case they stuffed all the components into. They had to because of the stick they got (and lack of sales in Japan) due to the size of the original.

BTW - I heard (probably 2 weeks ago) the estimated release date for the Elite will be November for Europe. Dunno whether, by that stage, the Elite will feature the 65nm chips in our first batch.

0ubliette

well the first batch of elites definitely wont feature the 65nm die, what with them already produced and all. Ive also seen a few threads about elites being just as unreliable, one of an elite that got the 3 rings straight out of the box, and one youtube video of an elite that makes noise like an asthmatic 80yr old running a marathon snd gets disc read errors