Sony set to board the "Ram-bus"

Thanks to nekrosoft13 for posting in BPN

Sony and Toshiba have licensed technology from Rambus that likely will be incorporated into a future version of the PlayStation game console.

The two Japanese giants have licensed "Yellowstone," a high-speed interface for connecting memory to microprocessors, and "Redwood," a chip-to-chip connection, from the processor designer, the companies said.

Both Yellowstone and Redwood would be used to enhance the broadband capabilities of "Cell," a complex microprocessor that will likely power an upcoming version of Sony's PlayStation.

Cell, which is expected to come out in late 2004 or early 2005, substantially differs from current chips on the market. Developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the processor will contain multiple chips inside a single piece of silicon and will be geared toward delivering video, entertainment, interactive gaming and other content. It will have the ability to do north of 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second, roughly 100 times more than a single Pentium 4 chip running at 2.5GHz.

View: Deal puts Rambus in future PlayStation