AfterDawn: News

Sony selling Cell BE chip facility to Toshiba?

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

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Sep 2007 8:24

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• 10 comments

• 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?!?!?!?

  18.9.2007 09:19 #1

• killaklan

  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?

  18.9.2007 09:26 #2

• BIGnewb

  lol ^ yea speak english

  18.9.2007 11:20 #3

• reloadSE

  Toshiba, IBM and Sony are working together for the cell processor not Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.....

  18.9.2007 12:07 #4

• jdmtsx

  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?

  18.9.2007 12:33 #5

• 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 ?

  18.9.2007 14:44 #6

• ChiknLitl

  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!!

  18.9.2007 17:12 #7

• SamNz

  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 :)

  19.9.2007 00:48 #8

• ZippyDSM

  Sony scrambling to save money?

  23.9.2007 11:57 #9

• borhan9

  Sony just gave nintendo a bigger lead playing with their sony playstation device.

  24.9.2007 14:51 #10