PS4 Inside

We happily partnered with iFixit for the PS4 launch and lined up outside of EB Video games in Ottawa for the midnight release. Enjoyment was in the air, to state the least. It's challenging to believe that it's already been seven years given that Sony released their Playstation 3.

The new PS4's style blends Sony's standard jet black colour with a slim and lustrous look. It's quite similar in dimension to Sony's 2nd generation PS3 and slightly much more compact compared to its rival Xbox One. Among the initially points we observed was that Sony's engineers took care of to find a method to fold up the power supply inside the box, leaving clumsy gamers without peripheral energy brick to trip over. 

Just what's Inside?

Our company know for certain that the PS4 is powered by a solitary chip customized CPU/GPU processor featuring a low power x86-64 AMD 8 core CPU block and a 1.84 TFLOPS AMD Radeon GPU block packaged in this solitary SoC. We additionally expected to locate 8 GB GDDR5 RAM, 500 GB removable and upgradable hard disk storage, 802.11 b/g/n Wireless and Bluetooth 2.1 and USB 3.0 + Ethernet 10/100/1000.

The Key Processor

Based upon commonly circulated info, the PS4 utilizes a single die CPU/GPU and one primary shared 8GB memory selection. We consequently expected to view a solitary die under the major processor package deal, with no different DRAM die in package, and no embedded DRAM on the main die. This is certainly what we have actually found. A significant big die of 19 x 18.3 mm.

The DRAM

Lots of visitors will have seen Sony's very own teardown video of the PS4. From the view of the mainboard viewed in this video clip, one could have expected the eight DRAM pass away apparent on the top of the board to be 8 1GB DRAM ICs. In truth there are 8 DRAM ICs on the leading of the board and eight under of the board. Provided Sony's posted specs offering the quantity of primary memory at 8GB, we could conclude that each of the 16 DRAM die are 512MB.

The Network Co-Processor

One of the convenient brand-new features of this generation of console is the ability they need to download content while in standby mode. This is allowed by dedicating silicon to that specific activity, such that most sub-systems can be shut off while keeping that performance alive. The PS4's dedicated network processor seems a personalized ASIC by Marvell, going by the package markings.

The WiFi Module

The WiFi Module including a steel lid and Marvell plan markings contains an appealing part. The WiFi engine behind the PS4 is a Marvell Avastar 88W8797. The Avastar attributes multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/gn / + Bluetooth 4.0 with Low Power Support (BLE) plus FM radio and an installed PMIC block. Interestingly, this Avatar was developed for mobile applications like smart phones and tablets, but to date Chipworks has actually simply ever before noted this Marvell gadget inside another product, The Microsoft Surface Tablet back in October of 2012. Do you believe Sony got an offer on this? The WiFi module likewise includes two Skyworks/SiGe WiFi front end components. The Avastar die measures 5.6 x 6.9 mm and was fabricated at TSMC and appears to be made on a 65 nm blended signal procedure modern technology.