Microsoft has seemingly reached an agreement with Chartered Semiconductor to provision the Xbox 360 with a 65 nm processor in 2007. This will provide the console with a more powerful and less power-hungry processor. Tech specs for the chip have yet to be announced, but it should be based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology.
"We look forward to working with Chartered on the production of such an important component of our Xbox 360 system," said Larry Yang, General Manager of Xbox console development at Microsoft in a prepared statement. "We plan to continue with our strategy of dual sourcing from Chartered and IBM's fabs, which are operationally aligned and compatible, to give us the consistent product quality and flexibility we will need."
The move to this more powerful CPU can be seen as indication of increasing competitive pressure from the likes of Sony's upcoming Playstation 3; the original Xbox did not receive such an upgrade during its lifecycle.