Taiwanese Company Wins Contract for New 360 VRAM

Smaller graphics RAM is making its way into new 360s.

A Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing company - named, plainly enough, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company - released a statement announcing that it has won a contract to begin production of the Xbox 360's graphics memory.

The 90nm eDRAM process dovetails with a 65nm die shrink process for the console's processing and graphics cores.

The changes will likely result in decreased heat output, power consumption, cost and hardware failure. Die shrinks in consoles and PC components are commonly introduced once the fabrication process has been maximized for efficiency.

The Hsinchu-based company said it has been producing the 90nm chips since last year and that there are already more than a dozen consumer products on shelves featuring the chips.

Source: TSMC