The chip uses a finer manufacturing process, making it smaller than its Oberon predecessor. Sony’s new game consoles now use a more compact processor, manufactured by TSMC using a more advanced 6nm process technology. Recall that the original set-top box was produced with the Oberon processor, which uses the 7-nm TSMC N7 process technology.
Architecturally, the new chip has not changed in any way. It still uses AMD Zen 2 compute cores and RDNA 2 graphics architecture. Performance remains the same. The die area of the new processor is about 260 mm2. For comparison, the original version has a chip area of 300 mm2.
The new version received a smaller motherboard, as well as a more compact and lighter cooling system. The use of the latter became possible precisely due to the transition of the set-top box processor to a new, thinner process technology. The updated console requires less power and is therefore less demanding on cooling. The release of smaller chips for the PlayStation 5 means more chips can be built on a single silicon wafer. Thus, theoretically, an updated console can cost up to 12% less to manufacture.
