Sony nous annonce à travers un communiqué que le « cell » sera bien présent dans la PS3 !
Je traduis un peu le communiqué pour ceux qui ne parlent pas la langue anglaise ^^.
Ce communiqué nous informe que Sony a investit la somme colossale de 200 milliards de Yens, soit plus de 1.67 milliards d’euros sur une période de 3 ans pour le développement du processeur CELL !
C’est Toshiba qui touchera le gros lot car c’est eux qui vont avoir le contrat de production de la CELL. La production commencera en avril 2004 dans une nouvelle usine à Oita sur l’île de Kyushu. Sony serait prêt à investir près de 25% de la somme initiale pour la construction de cette nouvelle usine, mais Toshiba annonce qu’il peut gérer la situation et allonger une somme de près de 3 milliards d’Euros pour la construction d’une usine de fabrication de processeurs et celle ( hahaha) d’une fabrication de processeurs mémoire. Les analystes ne croient pas que Toshiba puisse donner une telle somme.
Je vous laisse lire le communiqué :
« Sony to Invest Y200 Bln in Chips in 3 Yrs
Mon April 21, 2003 04:23 AM ET
TOKYO ( Reuters) - Sony Corp, the world´s largest consumer electronics maker, said on Monday it will spend 200 billion yen ( $1.67 billion) over a three-year period on new chip production facilities for cutting-edge 300 mm wafers.
It will invest 73 billion yen of the money in the first year, starting this month, to install the advanced facilities in its chip plant in Nagasaki on Kyushu island in southwest Japan.
The investment is to produce a new microprocessor, code-named " cell," that aims to put the processing power of a supercomputer into game machines and home electronics devices.
The chip, set to debut in 2005, is expected to be used in the next generation of PlayStation game players, the current generation of which has trounced rivals such as Microsoft Corp´s Xbox and which is a vital profit engine for Sony.
Sony and its game subsidiary are working with Toshiba Corp T> , Japan´s largest chipmaker, and IBM ( International Business Machines Corp) on the new microprocessor.
Toshiba said earlier on Monday it will make chips for PlayStation at its own new 200 billion yen plant, at Oita in Kyushu, to come on stream in the business year from April 2004.
It declined to say how much Sony might invest in the plant.
Business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported at the weekend that the Sony group would invest 40-50 billion yen, or 20-25 percent of the cost, in a new Toshiba chip facility.
Sony is sharpening its focus on semiconductors, which it considers vital for keeping ahead of rivals as digital home electronics from game machines to TV sets take on sophisticated capabilities such as high-speed Internet connections.
Sony Computer Entertainment says about 50-60 percent of the value of a PlayStation 2 game console is in its semiconductors.
Sony has already spent 84.5 billion yen on a joint plant with Toshiba in Oita that makes microprocessors for PlayStation 2.
Toshiba unveiled plans in December to build another plant at Oita that will use dinner plate-sized 300 mm ( 12-inch) wafers yielding twice as many chips as the standard 200 mm ( 8 inch) variety, cutting costs by up to 30 percent.
Toshiba has repeatedly said it would be able to fund from its own resources the nearly $3 billion cost of two new chip plants -- the Oita facility and a memory chip plant in central Japan -- but analysts have said it would need to tap Sony and other partners to share the heavy cost burden. »
Voilà donc pas de panique le Cell sera bien de la partie.
