Tweet
Despite its general release two months ago, Nintendo's Wii U console would remain something of a technological mystery. We quickly gained a good idea of the make-up of the IBM tri-core CPU, but the system's apparent strengths are in its graphics hardware, and in that regard we had little or no idea of the composition of the Radeon core. Indeed, it's safe to say that we knew much more about the graphics processors in the next-generation Xbox and PlayStation. Until now.Detailed polysilicon die photography of the Wii U's GPU has now been released, showing the hardware make-up at the nano level and resolving most of the outstanding mysteries. However, the story of how these photos came into existence is a fascinating tale in itself: community forum NeoGAF noticed that Chipworks were selling Wii U reverse-engineering photography on its website, with shots of the principal silicon being offered at $200 a pop. Seeking to draw a line under the controversy surrounding the Nintendo hardware, a collection was started to buy the photos.
There was just one problem. The shots were simply higher quality versions of what had already been revealed on sites like Anandtech - good for getting an idea of the amount of silicon used and the make-up of the overall design, but without the ultra-magnification required to provide answers, and therefore no further use in unearthing the secrets of the Wii U hardware. At this point, Chipworks itself became aware of the community money-raising effort, and decided to help out by providing the required shot - for free. It's a remarkably generous gesture bearing in mind that the cost of carrying out this work is, as Chipworks' Rob Williamson told us, "non-trivial".
Read more…
More...