Europe's biggest chipmaker, Infineon said it won a major order to supply Microsoft with chips for its Xbox 360, scheduled for release
November 24.
The two firms did not provide financial details of the order.
During Infineon's analysts' day, executives with the German-owned
company said it will be supplying a removable solid-state dynamic
random-access memory, or DRAM, unit, as well as two other key
components: a single integrated chip to power a wireless gamepad
controller and an advanced security chip.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 is expected to house a large amount of memory to
deal with the massive amount of computing power from the IBM PowerPC
processor, which has three symmetrical cores running at 3.2GHz each.
The console is expected to have a 20GB hard drive, high-definition
content game support and a 500MHz graphics processor by ATI.
As previously disclosed, the Xbox 360 will house
512MB of graphics DRAM, a 700MHz dynamic DDR (double data rate)
controller and an enhanced DRAM chip that eats up 256 gigabits per
second of memory bandwidth for helping process the high-definition
video content expected to run on the box.
Prices for the Xbox 360 will start at $299 for the basic version and
$399 for the premium edition. A first-generation Xbox currently
retails for $149 online.
Sony and Nintendo are also gearing up to deliver their
next-generation game boxes. Sony's PlayStation 3 is expected to be
available soon after the Xbox launches, with Nintendo's Revolution
expected in 2006.