[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
Playstation 3 is the latest video game console from Sony. Today we completely disassembled a Playstation 3 (80 GB version) to show you how it looks like inside and the components used.
But let’s first take an overall look of the Playstation 3 from outside. In case you’ve never seen one, the new Playstation 3 is more like a Home Theater PC (HTPC) that happens to also play games. Or a high-end video game console that also happens to be a media center PC. You decide. It comes with a Blu-Ray player, HDMI output (digital video) supporting full HD resolution (1080p), optical SPDIF (digital audio) output, two USB 2.0 ports, BlueTooth 2.0, Wi-Fi (11 Mbps and 54 Mbps supported), one Gigabit Ethernet port and a SATA 2.5” hard disk drive (80 GB on the model we disassembled). Besides playing games, you can use it to play DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, videos and MP3 and watch photos and since it has built-in networking capability, data can be stored on another device. Complete technical specifications can be found on Playstation’s website. What is really sweet about Playstation 3 is that it costs the same thing that a Blu-Ray player (USD 400), so you can buy it to use as a Blu-Ray player and get a free high-end video game console!
Figure 3: The two USB 2.0 ports on the front panel.
Figure 4: Connectors from the rear panel.
[nextpage title=”The Hard Disk Drive”]
The hard disk drive is found on an external removable bay on the left panel of the console (or bottom panel, if you use the Playstation 3 like shown in Figure 2).
Figure 5: Accessing the hard disk drive compartment.
Figure 6: Removing the hard disk drive.
Playstation 3 uses a 2.5” SATA-300 hard disk drive and the unit we disassembled came with an 80 GB unit from Fujitsu, model MHZ2080BH, which rotates at 5,400 rpm (2.5” units are targeted to laptop computers and usually run at 5,400 rpm instead of 7,200 rpm like desktop hard disk drives) and has an 8 MB buffer. Full specifications can be found here.
Figure 7: The 80 GB 2.5” SATA-300 hard disk drive.
[nextpage title=”Inside the Playstation 3″]
In Figure 8, you can see Playstation 3 with its top cover removed. That is the first image you have when opening the Playstation 3. The black unit on the left is the power supply, the gray unit on the right is the Blu-Ray drive, the small printed circuit board on the lower left corner provides the radio capability (BlueTooth and Wi-Fi) and USB ports and below the Blu-Ray drive you have the motherboard. Below everything is the unit’s cooling system, which you can’t see on this picture.
Figure 8: Inside Playstation 3.
On the pictures below you can see the Playstation 3 completely disassembled. We will talk about each individual part on the following pages.
Figure 9: Playstation 3 disassembled.
Figure 10: Playstation 3 disassembled.
Figure 11: Playstation 3 disassembled.
It is important to note that other versions of Playstation 3 use different components inside. As mentioned, we disassembled the 80 GB model as sold in the USA market on October 2008.
[nextpage title=”The Power Supply”]
Playstation 3’s power supply can be seen in Figure 12. It is manufactured by Delta (model EADP-260AP).
This power supply provides two outputs, +12 V (up to 21.5 A) and +5 V (up to 0.6 A). This translates in a maximum power of 261 W (and hence the “260” on the model number). The +12 V output is available on the bottom of the unit through a two-pin female plug, while the +5 V output is available on a side connector that also has a pin for the on/off (actually a standby) switch available on the front panel of the console. You can see this connector in Figure 12, where a cable with three white wires is connected.
Figure 13: The +12 V output on the power supply.
On Figures 15 and 16 you have an overall look inside the power supply from Playstation 3. As you can see, the power supply does not have a fan. All capacitors present on the power supply are Japanese, from Chemi-Con, Rubycon and Nichicon.
Figure 15: Inside the power supply.
Figure 16: Inside the power supply.
[nextpage title=”The Blu-Ray Drive”]
The Blu-Ray drive that comes with Playstation 3 can read BD (Blu-Ray) discs at 2x (72 Mbps, i.e., 9 MB/s), DVDs at 8x (8.1 MB/s) and CDs at 24x (3,600 KB/s). As you can see this is a very simple unit (all Blu-Ray players have a minimum speed of 2x, so 2x here isn’t really an advantage).
Figure 17: Playstation 3 Blu-Ray drive.
Figure 18: Playstation 3 Blu-Ray drive.
Figure 19: Chips used on the Blu-Ray drive.
The chips used on the Blu-Ray drive that comes with the Playstation 3 are the following:
- Main controller (DSP, Digital Signal Processor): Sony CXD5065
- Secondary controller (FEP, Front End Processor): Sony CXA2720
- Motor driver (1): Rohm BA5888FP, used to drive the motors.
- Motor driver (2): Rohm BD7956FS, used to drive the motors.
- Flash ROM: Spansion S29AL008D (8 Mbit, 1 MB), used to store the drive’s firmware.
- RAM (buffer): ESMT M12L64164A-7TG (64 Mbit, 8 MB), so this unit has an 8 MB buffer.
[nextpage title=”The Radio/USB Circuit Board”]
This small printed circuit board hosts Playstation 3’s radio circuits on one side and the USB ports on the other side. It features three antennas, two for Wi-Fi connection and one for BlueTooth connection.
The radio circuitry uses the following integrated circuits:
- IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network and BlueTooth 2.0 EDR controller chip: Marvell 88W8580.
- RAM (buffer): Nanya NT5SV8M16FS-6K (128 Mbit, 16 MB).
The USB ports are controlled by a GL852 chip.
[nextpage title=”The Motherboard”]
You can have an overall look of the Playstation 3 motherboard on the pictures below. It is important to note that other versions of Playstation 3 use different components inside. As mentioned, we disassembled the 80 GB model as sold in the USA market on October 2008.
Figure 22: Playstation 3 motherboard (component side).
Figure 23: Playstation 3 motherboard (component side).
Figure 24: Playstation 3 motherboard (solder side).
[nextpage title=”The Motherboard (Cont’d)”]
The heart of the Playstation 3 are the two processors it uses: Cell Broadband Engine (CXD2989), which is the CPU (generic processor), and RSX Reality Synthesizer (CXD2982), which is the GPU (graphics processor).
Figure 25: Cell Broadband Engine, the CPU.
Figure 26: RSX Reality Synthesizer, the GPU.
Playstation 3 uses two kinds of memory. It has 256 MB XDR for the main RAM and 256 MB GDDR3 for the video memory, which is embedded inside the GPU.
XDR is a memory architecture developed by Rambus, which transmits a smaller number of bits per clock cycle but at a high clock rate, enabling a high transfer rate (click here to learn more about this technology). Playstation 3 uses four Samsung K4Y50164UE-JCB3 chips running at 3.2 GHz. Each chip transfers 16 bits per clock cycle, so the communication between the CPU and memory is of 64 bits per clock cycle (16 bits x 4 chips). This yelds a maximum theoretical transfer rate of 25.6 GB/s (3.2 GHz x 64 bits / 8). Each chip holds 512 Mbits of information, which equals to 64 MB and thus four chips makes 256 MB RAM.
Figure 27: One of the XDR memory chips from Playstation 3.
Other chips used on Playstation 3 motherboard are the following:
- Sony CXM4024 li>
- Sony CXR714120
- Sony CXD2984
- Flash RAM: Spansion S29GL128N (128 Mbit, 16 MB)
- Serial ATA bridge: Marvell 88SA8040
- Gigabit Ethernet controller: Marvell 88E6106
- HDMI controller: Silicon Image Vastlane Sil9132
- Clock generator (1): ICS 1493BG
- Clock generator (2): ICS 9249AGLF
- On Semiconductor NCP5399
[nextpage title=”Cooling System”]
The cooling system is located below the motherboard. It uses a radial fan and two passive aluminum heatsinks for the CPU and the GPU.
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