New Xbox Processor Offers Powerful Speeds

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SAN JOSE, Calif. - Less than a month before Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 hits store shelves, International Business Corp. revealed details of the microprocessor that powers the long-awaited video game console.

The IBM-built chip features three customized PowerPC computing engines that can each handle two simultaneous tasks at clock speeds greater than 3 gigahertz. It was customized for Microsoft in less than 24 months from the original contract.

"Working with IBM gave us the flexibility to design a processor to give game developers the kind of targeted power they need to make great games," said Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft vice president of Xbox hardware.

The original Xbox, released in the fall of 2001, used an Intel Corp. 733-megahertz Pentium III microprocessor. In 2003, Microsoft decided to switch to a different vendor for the next-generation system.

The company best known for its market-dominating Windows operating system instead turned to IBM — the same company Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). worked with to jointly develop the upcoming PlayStation 3's Cell microprocessor.

But the Cell processor, which is expected to be deployed in devices beyond the PlayStation, is fundamentally different from the Xbox chip, said Ilan Spillinger, director of the IBM Design Center for Xbox 360.

"We took a general purpose core ... and we implemented a few more instructions that were key for them to accomplish the performance (Microsoft) was looking for," he said.

IBM also incorporated high-speed connection between the microprocessor and the Xbox's graphics processor developed by ATI Technologies Inc. The graphics hardware can read directly from what's stored on the primary processor's onboard memory.

IBM will discuss the new custom chip Tuesday at the Fall Processor Forum, which is being held this week in San Jose.

The Xbox 360 is slated to be launched in North America on Nov. 22, and the top model is expected to retail for $399.99. A scaled-back version — without a hard drive, wireless controller and other features — will cost $100 less.

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SAN JOSE, Calif.—Attendees at the In-Stat Fall Processor Forum here Tuesday got a preview of the of the custom-designed processor that will power Microsoft Corp.'s next-generation Xbox 360 game console.

The CPU comprises three 64-bit PowerPC cores, each running at 3.2GHz, "the highest core speed" ever achieved by this technology, according to Jeff Brown, IBM's chief engineer for the Microsoft CPU Project. Able to support two simultaneous threads, the processor was designed with the key goal of being able to support the high sustained bandwidth required by the game console. Brown said the processor should be able to hit a peak bandwidth of 21.6G bps.


"Microsoft engineers were involved in every step" of the design process for the chip, which has a name that Brown declined to reveal during his presentation.


Click here for PC Magazine's hands-on preview of the Xbox 360.

The processor will also feature a split L2 cache, with the first part running at the same frequency as the CPU, while the other will run at half that. Brown also declined to disclose the processor's power and heat numbers.


The chip, which is based on IBM's 90-nanometer Silicon on Insulator (SoI) technology, is being constructed at IBM's own Fishkill, N.Y., plant and at Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor.

Although the new processor will feature 128 registers, the first 32 will be mapped to the 32 registers available in the previous generation of processors, Brown said. This will contribute to the processor's binary compatibility with a subset of the standard PowerPC architecture, he said.


The move from first silicon to a working prototype of an Xbox 360 took only eight months, Brown said. This factor will enable systems to go on sale Nov. 22, he said.

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