Driven by 128-bit Emotion Engine, the Playstation2 can render nearly 100 million polygons/s -- Sony plans workstations for Playstation silicon October 12, 1999 ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES via NewsEdge Corporation : TOKYO - Claiming a lead in graphics technology, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) plans to develop a line of workstations that makes full use of the company's Playstation2 silicon, according to SCE president and chief executive officer Ken Kutaragi. Sony said it was forced to turn to a workstation line that could be used as host systems for digital entertainment content because traditional PCs and workstations are no longer powerful enough to serve as development platforms for digital content. "We have been using PCs as the host platform to develop content for the Playstation, but that platform is reaching its limit," said Kutaragi. Delivering a keynote address at the Microprocessor Forum technical conference, he noted that the chip driving the eagerly anticipated Playstation2 has some 13 million transistors, which is on a par with the most complex desktop PC microprocessors. "The power inside the Emotion Engine matches the power inside a Pentium III today." Driven by the 128-bit Emotion Engine, the Playstation2 is capable of rendering nearly 100 million polygons per second, and can produce full-screen images in real-time at 60 frames per second. "Our rendering capabilities are approaching the level seen in graphics workstations," said Kutaragi. The systems based on the Playstation2 chips will initially be targeted at developers writing applications for the console, and they will not compete directly with current workstations. However, over time, Sony hopes to roll a line of workstations to penetrate various specialized markets where digital content is created. In an effort to maintain an edge in graphics, Kutaragi said that between now and 2005, Sony plans two enhancements to its Playstation2 chips that will be specifically aimed at its workstation line. That's when the company hopes to launch a new generation of Playstation chips for its consoles. The company is just beginning to search for new partners for that design effort. Meanwhile, "we are going to raise the performance of these workstations " quickly, Kutaragi said. "So at a certain stage, it will have enough capability [to function] as a server for a [digital] theater and at another stage it will have the capability [to function] as a [digital bit-stream] transmitter." Sony currently plans three generations of the workstations. The first systems, which the company intends to roll out next year, will use faster versions of the 13 million-transistor Emotion Engine CPU and graphics synthesizer chips found in the Playstation2, allowing the systems to handle graphics of 1,920 x 1,080/60p (progressive). In 2002, Sony will roll out systems based on enhanced versions of the processor and graphics chip. The new CPU will be built in a 0.13-micron process and have a silicon budget of 40 million transistors. A third generation, slated to appear in 2005, will use an entirely new architecture for both CPU and graphics and target support for 4,000 x 2,000-pixel resolution graphics at 24 to 120p. Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony together invested $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. Peter Glaskowsky, senior analyst for multimedia at MicroDesign Resources (Sunnyvale, Calif.), said the Emotion Engine chip is just as powerful as a workstation engine. "It really is in the same league, so it makes sense for them to use it in a workstation," he noted. "And for graphics, it's even more powerful than today's Pentium-class devices." Challenges loom However, he said that Sony will be challenged in its efforts to hang onto its apparent lead in graphics. The company will not upgrade the graphics in the console itself until 2005, he noted, and PC graphics makers will continue to improve the performance of their products in six-month cycles. The latest crop of accelerators that use geometry processing are already giving the PC a significant boost, he said. One company seeking to bring new graphics technology to the PC or console world is GigaPixel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.). George Haber, president and CEO of the startup, said his company is focusing on next-generation graphics intellectual property and does not plan to market its own chips. GigaPixel already has signed up two top-tier customers in the PC realm, and Haber said the concept has generated strong interest from numerous other companies. The heart of the GigaPixel core is its ability to examine a 3-D image and determine which polygons are visible and which ones are blocked by other images. The core saves processing power by eliminating the need to calculate and render the images that do not appear on the screen. "I think we have designed something that is at least 100 times as powerful as any other graphics technology available," said Haber.