SAN FRANCISCO -- A new multimedia super-chip from Sony that will likely power the next PlayStation was previewed Tuesday at a gathering of the world's leading chip designers.
The new 128-bit Sony chip, featuring built-in hardware for decoding 3-D graphics and digital video, was unveiled at the 1999 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, an annual gathering of chip-industry engineers.
Other major processor manufacturers, including Intel, IBM, Advanced Micro Devices, and Motorola, also showed off next-generation wares at the three-day meeting in San Francisco.
Sony's new-media processor is considerably more powerful than the chip at the heart of the current PlayStation. Running at 250 MHz, the 128-bit media processor will feature built-in hardware for decoding the massive amounts of information behind 3-D graphics and digital video.
In contrast, the current PlayStation's chip, which has remained unchanged since the unit was launched three-and-a-half years ago, is a 32-bit processor running at 33 MHz.
The combination of 3-D and video on the new chip suggests that it could do double duty as a game console-cum-DVD player, said Brian Case, a contributing editor to the Microprocessor Report, an industry newsletter.
"On paper, it looks like it'll knock your socks off," Case said. "It'll compete with a fully loaded PC."
Case said the chip may perform all the functions currently handled by three or four add-on cards: decoding video and 2-D and 3-D graphics.
"It's pretty wild," Case added. "It's the first time I've seen this level of 3-D performance and video that's headed for an actual product."
However, Sony Computer Entertainment America, which markets the PlayStation in the United States, refused to confirm or deny plans for the chip.
"This is a forum to announce new technologies, and we haven't made any public announcements about the next generation of the PlayStation," said spokeswoman Molly Smith.
Meanwhile, the hundreds of bespectacled engineers and bearded academics patiently listened to dry, technical reports: __1. Intel told attendees that it will boost forthcoming Pentium III chips to 600 MHz. The chip, which was launched Tuesday at a massive marketing event at the San Jose Convention Center, will debut at 450 and 500 MHz. 2. AMD previewed its next-generation chip, the K7, due later this year. "The K7 will be a real barn burner," said Keith Deifendorff, editor in chief of the Microprocessor Report. "The only question is whether AMD can execute." 3. IBM showed the first of its PowerPC chips based on new design and manufacturing techniques. Used in Apple's Macs, the new chips are the first product of cutting-edge copper-wiring technology and silicon-on-insulator designs, which produce faster chips that use less power, IBM said. 4. Motorola previewed a 450 MHz PowerPC chip with AltiVec, a new hardware and software combination for processing high-end multimedia and telecom applications. The chips are also expected to find their way into Macs some time this summer. __
