Emotion Engine
ATTENTION: Please read the FAQ before sending me email!
Obviously I don't want to hurt Sony in any way by posting information before they do. That's why this page only contains stuff that is publicly available elsewhere, except for the information about what parts of this chip I've been working on.

I Used to have picture here that showed an artist's rendering of the PS2 system before SONY released the system. Sure enough, that got this page mentioned at Slashdot.

Features of the Emotion Engine processor:

You could also read about this on the official Official Sony Website and inISSCC 1999, Digest of Technical Papers, pp. 256-259.

A blue background indicates blocks that I've worked on.

Architecture
CPU core 128 bit RISC (MIPS IV-subset)
Clock Frequency 300MHz
Integer Unit 64bit (2-way Superscalar)
Multimedia extended instructions 107 instructions at 128 bit width
Integer General Purpose Register 32 at 128 bit width
Memory Management Unit (TLB) 48 double entries
Branch Target Address Cache (BTAC) 64 entries
Instruction Cache 16 KB (2-way)
Data Cache 8 KB (2-way)
Scratch Pad RAM 16 KB (1K x 128, Dual port)
Main Memory 32 MB (Direct RDRAM 2ch@800MHz)
Memory bandwidth 3.2 GB/sec
DMA 10 channels
Co-processor1 FPU (FMAC x 1, FDIV x 1)
Co-processor2 VU0 (FMAC x 4, FDIV x 1, Memory 4KB/4KB)
Vector Processing Unit VU1 (FMAC x 5, FDIV x 2, Memory 16KB/16KB)
Image Processing Unit MPEG2 Macroblock Layer Decoder
Performance
Floating Point Performance
  • Perspective Transformation
  • Lighting
  • Fog
  • Curved Surface Generation (Bezier)
    		• 6.2 GFLOPS
  • 66 Million Polygons/sec
  • 38 Million Polygons/sec
  • 36 Million Polygons/sec
  • 16 Million Polygons/sec
    • Comparison with Pentium processors:
    Image Processing Performance 150Million Pixels/sec
    Process Parameters
    Gate Width 0.18 micron
    Power Supply 1.8 V (Core and IO)
    Power Consumption 15 Watts (estimated)
    Metal Layers 4
    Total Transistors 10.5 Million
    CPU2 Die Size 17.0 x 14.1 mm2
    Core Die Size 11.6 x 6.3 mm2
    Package 540-pin PBGA

    Die Photograph of the Core

    Source: I received this picture from a guy who writes for "Das Offizielle PlayStation Magazin" and he claims he got it directly from Sony. Of course I have better pictures of that chip, but I'm sure Sony doesn't want to see them on this page. You can find a b/w picture that includes the block names in ISSCC 1999, Digest of Technical Papers, p. 466

    This picture shows the core of the EE. The big block in the upper portion is the IU. To the left of it is the FGPR. On the bottom are 2 bigger blocks: I-Cache (left) and D-Cache (right). FMAC and FDIV are on the very left. The area in the middle that looks very fuzzy contains the standard cells of the control. The aspect ratio of that block is terrible, look at the horizontal routing congestion in the center.

    My Contributions to this Processor Core:

    • Custom Block Design
      • BTAC
      • MMU
    • Physical Design (for standard-cell portion)
      • Global circuits
      • Design of special high-speed library cells
      • Library characterization
      • Clock distribution and methodology
      • Timing verification
    • Invented novel approach to clock tree balancing (which sent me on a 4 week business trip to Japan).

    Chris' Emotion Engine FAQ

    (These are questions I got, not one of them is made up.)

    1. As I understand it, you're a developer on the Playstation2, correct?
    WRONG! I helped develop the core of the 'Emotion Engine' (EE) only, which is the processor of the new Playstation.

    2. I was just wondering how much this new Playstation would cost.
    Please wait for Sony's announcement. According to rumors, the price is gonna be somewhere in the rage of $250 to $400. If it was up to me it would be so cheap that everybody had to buy it. ;-)

    3. Yo man, what's up with that LCD display?????? And how fast is the CD-rom drive? Does this mean that the new Playstation will be able to play DVD movies as well? How many audio outputs are there?
    This and all other questions related to the box I can't answer; see answer for FAQ 1.

    4. I just want to know will PSX2 let me play old PSX games too or do i have to buy different games for PSX2?
    You will be able to run your old stuff. However, the graphics will be absolutely the same, not enhanced as some people believe.

    5. I found your web page from a posting on slashdot, and was interested on how you got a job in Japan?
    Good question. I spammed a lot of companies all over the world (US, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, South Africa, to name a few) with my resume asking for an internship and after more than 5 months I got the only positive reply, that was from Toshiba in Kawasaki. Guys (and girls), do your internships abroad, it will broaden your mind! (I feel like a psychologist now...)

    6. I was wondering if you could recommend any good books on computer design?
    Here I would like to recommend 3 books which you can also get online if you like. If you want to learn more about circuit design on the transistor level, I recommend     Principles of CMOS VLSI Design: A Systems Perspective. This book will tell you about CMOS transistor basics, manufacturing process and several design techniques such as static and dynamic logic. For all architecture related issues I usually use Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach. In this book you find everything on caches, MMUs, ALUs and what have you in a processor. It mainly talks about RISC, but CISC as well. When I wrote my thesis, I was very impressed by the book from Katevenis: "Reduced Instruction Set Computer Architectures for VLSI" which I read from cover to cover. It talks about the RISC project at UC Berkeley.

    There have been visitors on this page since its creation in March 1999.
    (Thanks to someone who posted it on Slashdot ;-)

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