Workstation effort
The Creative Workstation effort at present has three phases. For Phase 1, SCE intends to develop a workstation with about 10 times the performance of the development tool workstation, and to complete that work in 2000. The workstation will have the capability to handle graphics of 1,920 x 1,080/60p (progressive). SCE will not have time to develop new chips by 2000, so it will achieve the performance by using in parallel faster versions of the Emotion Engine and Graphic Synthesizer found in the Playstation2.
The Phase 2 workstation, scheduled to be introduced in 2002, will have 100 times the performance of the development tool workstation and will feature the Emotion Engine 2 and Graphic Synthesizer 2, each with an enhanced architecture over the current chips. The CPU will have 40 million transistors and will be fabricated on a 0.13-micron process. The workstation will handle the same 1,920 x 1,080 pixel graphics, and will have a flexible frame rate ranging from 24 to about 75 frames/second.
The Phase 3 workstation, scheduled to appear around 2005-2006, will have the Emotion Engine 3 and Graphic Synthesizer 3, which will have drastically changed architectures. As a result, the workstation will have 1,000 times performance of the development tool workstation, and will handle 4,000 x 2,000-pixel pictures at 24-to-120p. At this stage, Playstation3 will be taking a shape, Sony said.
The Phase 2 workstation will have real-time graphics production capability to handle movies, which could greatly change the movie production process, Sony said.
"We are going to raise the performance of Creative Workstations at a high pace," Kutaragi said. "So at a certain stage, it will have enough capability as a server for a mini-theater and at another stage it will have capability as a digital bit-stream transmitter at broadcast station."
Kutaragi said SCE is pursuing the workstations to support the creation of content. As such, SCE would be pleased to sell just 1,000 or 2,000 units a year, he said.
SCE and Sony together invested a total of about $1.1 billion on two fabs to establish a 0.18-micron process for the Emotion Engine and the Graphic Synthesizer. About $472 million was spent on the Emotion Engine's facility, which is a joint venture with Toshiba. About $660 million was spent on the fab in Nagasaki for the Graphic Synthesizer. "This investment will be recouped by selling Playstation2 on the consumer market," Kutaragi said. "We will continue to develop finer processes such as 0.15 micron and 0.13 micron to make chips shrink and to increase productivity."
Kutaragi said SCE's engineers have a very clear target when they develop process technology. "Process development without specific applications will make no sense," he said. "In Intel's case, it is very clear. They develop a process for a specific CPU. But even the process is fine, it makes no sense if it is developed for general purpose.
"Once such a finer process is established, we can make silicon as large as the limit of a stepper, say 20 x 20-mm or 22 x 22-mm chips. To develop such architecture is pure R&D. Pursuing desirable architecture for SCE's entertainment CPU and Graphic Synthesizer, we have a large freedom to challenge any architecture."
Kutaragi said SCE has no intention of entering the current workstation market with the Creative Workstation, but will aim to introduce the systems into the new sectors. "For example, movie theaters currently use film projectors, but in several years, they should be entering digital projectors," he said. "At that stage, servers for theaters will be a good target for our Creative Workstation." Once movie theaters are connected to backbone networks, it will be possible to distribute movies digitally to all connected theaters in one night.
"If we are pursuing future architecture, skilled, capable engineers will come to join us," said Kutaragi.