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A preview version of Microsoft Virtual Server, Redmond's rebranded version of the Connectix product it purchased last February, has slipped out onto newsgroups and Internet sites. Never publicly released, Connectix began beta testing Virtual Server late last year.

Microsoft Virtual Server enables enterprises with large server clusters to reduce the amount of physical machines by running multiple virtual servers on each. Microsoft plans to also position Virtual Server as a migration path for businesses still running Windows NT4 servers, which can be consolidated onto a newer machine running Windows Server 2003.

The leaked build is numbered 1.0.218 and retains the Connectix logo. It integrates with Internet Information Services to offer administration of virtual servers via the Web and features a remote control client. The beta release expires on October 15, 2003.

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News source: Betanews

Toshiba started shipping engineering samples last September and mass production of devices for PlayStation 2 will start soon at Oita TS Semiconductor, a joint venture between SCEI and Toshiba, and this fall at SCEI's Nagasaki fab, in Isahaya City, Nagasaki Prefecture.

Joint development of the 65nm process called CMOS5 started last April and scheduled to be completed in two years. "We've agreed to continue the joint development towards the 45 nm CMOS6 process," said Ken Kutaragi, president and chief executive of SCEI. Kutaragi was promoted to executive deputy president of Sony main office on April 1.

Using the 90-nm CMOS4 process, SCEI integrated PlayStation 2 components into a single chip dubbedEE+GS@90nm. The device includes 53.5 million transistors and 4 Mbyte embedded DRAM in 86 square millimeter die size. It uses a 536-pin EBGA package. "With the practical product [EE+GS@90nm], we can launch mass production using 90-nm process smoothly," said Yoshihide Fujii, executive vice president of Toshiba Semiconductor Co.

With the shift to 90 nm, the embedded DRAM structure will change to a trench capacitor type from the stacked capacitor structure. Sony had collaborated with Fujitsu Ltd. to develop processes up to 0.18 micron and uses a stacked-capacitor DRAM for its embedded devices.

The integrated EE+GS@90nm device will be made at both OTSS and SCEI's Nagasaki fab using the same process.

Cell production

The Cell microprocessor will be the main product at the new 300-mm wafer fab. The processor aims to provide tera-flops performance with low power consumption by using silicon-on-insulator wafers.

Cell has often been described as the next CPU for future versions of the PlayStation 2, but three Japanese companies intend to promote it for wider applications. One application is as a ubiquitous processor that can be used various broadband-network nodes. "It will be the processor that constitutes each server in networks," said Kutaragi.

Sony has its eye on top server vendor Intel Corp., which looms as a key competitor in the network sector. Kutaragi predicted bottlenecks in broadband networks would not be solved using existing PC technology. Hence, he said the Cell processor is designed to break that network bottleneck.

Sony's investment will beneficial not only to SCEI but to whole Sony group, said Kunitake Ando, president and Sony Group COO. Ando said Sony is buying nearly $8.4 billion worth of ICs annually.

"Less than 20 percent of them are internally produced. We purchased even core devices that differentiate products. If such devices are fabricated internally and the percentage of internally procured devices goes up twice, Sony's semiconductor strategy will change greatly," said Ando.