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Sony selling Cell BE chip facility to Toshiba?

18 September 2007 8:24 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 10 comments

Although Sony spokespeople are denying the claims, Asian press sources are reporting that the electronics giant has decided to sell its Kyushu Semiconductor facility, the facility that produces the Cell BE CPU for the PlayStation 3, to Toshiba for almost 100 billion yen, the equivalent of $860 million USD.

The deal, if true, would help in Sony's on going plan to scale down its investment in semiconductor technology while at the same time keeping the powerful Cell chip within its group of partners. Since its inception, Sony, Toshiba and IBM have been in charge of its development.

Sony should keep all intellectual property rights for the Cell chip and will just be selling the facility it is made in. Sony doesn't necessarily need the money, but it would help reduce Sony's capital expenditures for the upkeep of the facility. BusinessWeek reported those figures are nearing $2 billion USD.

More updates as they become available.

Source:
BetaNews

Permalink to this article

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Riotard (Newbie) 18 September 2007 9:19
Toshiba and sony workign together BR and HDDVD ?!?!?! Simpel here, toshiba HD DVD M$ HD DVD this coudl so easy mean that SONY ARE SCREWED WITH THE PS3 is toshiba deceide to not make the 8 cell rocessor for SONY, because there are probably only a few other facilities that can! Persoanlly silly move, when u against this company in a formate war, that have linsk to the company which you are fighting in a consol war. What are the ppl at sony doing?!?!?!? [ + quote]
killaklan (Member) 18 September 2007 9:26
*Originally posted by Riotard:* Toshiba and sony workign together BR and HDDVD ?!?!?! Simpel here, toshiba HD DVD M$ HD DVD this coudl so easy mean that SONY ARE SCREWED WITH THE PS3 is toshiba deceide to not make the 8 cell rocessor for SONY, because there are probably only a few other facilities that can! Persoanlly silly move, when u against this company in a formate war, that have linsk to the company which you are fighting in a consol war. What are the ppl at sony doing?!?!?!? i have an even better question...wtf did u jus say? [ + quote]
BIGnewb (Inactive) 18 September 2007 11:20
lol ^ yea speak english [ + quote]
reloadSE (Member) 18 September 2007 12:07
Toshiba, IBM and Sony are working together for the cell processor not Blu-Ray or HD-DVD..... [ + quote]
jdmtsx (Newbie) 18 September 2007 12:33
Well you can't expect much....look at the guys SN lol *Quote:* *Originally posted by Riotard:* Toshiba and sony workign together BR and HDDVD ?!?!?! Simpel here, toshiba HD DVD M$ HD DVD this coudl so easy mean that SONY ARE SCREWED WITH THE PS3 is toshiba deceide to not make the 8 cell rocessor for SONY, because there are probably only a few other facilities that can! Persoanlly silly move, when u against this company in a formate war, that have linsk to the company which you are fighting in a consol war. What are the ppl at sony doing?!?!?!? i have an even better question...wtf did u jus say? [ + quote]
slim23 (Junior Member) 18 September 2007 14:44
k thi s might be a little off topic but what exactly is a cell processor i have a basic understanding but not quite sure also would the cell processor be better then the intel quad cores??? and if so is it possible to buy cell processors for desktops ? [ + quote]
ChiknLitl (Member) 18 September 2007 17:12
*Quote:* *Originally posted by Riotard:* Toshiba and sony workign together BR and HDDVD ?!?!?! Simpel here, toshiba HD DVD M$ HD DVD this coudl so easy mean that SONY ARE SCREWED WITH THE PS3 is toshiba deceide to not make the 8 cell rocessor for SONY, because there are probably only a few other facilities that can! Persoanlly silly move, when u against this company in a formate war, that have linsk to the company which you are fighting in a consol war. What are the ppl at sony doing?!?!?!? i have an even better question...wtf did u jus say? Oh man! LMFAO!! [ + quote]
SamNz (Newbie) 19 September 2007 0:48
*Originally posted by slim23:* k thi s might be a little off topic but what exactly is a cell processor i have a basic understanding but not quite sure also would the cell processor be better then the intel quad cores??? and if so is it possible to buy cell processors for desktops ? ill prolly not the best person to answer this but for example the ps3 cell is 7 core but its a different kind of architecture and its only supported by Linux (and ps3) atm wiki it it has a huge page on it :) [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 23 September 2007 11:57
Sony scrambling to save money? [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 24 September 2007 14:51
Sony just gave nintendo a bigger lead playing with their sony playstation device. [ + quote]