Falcon is coming your way this fall. The first Xbox 360s with it are probably on ships coming from China.
Readers of this column will know that Falcon is the code name for a board that houses the first Microsoft 65-nanometer chip for the Xbox 360.
When I went to E3, several Microsoft sources said they had never heard of Falcon. I scratched my head. But I've been able to confirm that it does indeed exist and I know more about its schedule. Falcon is the name for the board that houses the 65-nanometer microprocessor from IBM. The board does not include a 65-nanometer version of the ATI graphics chip for the Xbox 360. That version of the graphics chip is coming later. A good question here is why not. Doesn't Microsoft really need to reduce the heat coming out of that graphics chip?
In general, Microsoft's plan was to redesign the motherboard every year and introduce a new generation of chip circuitry every two years. By that standard, we are really due for the arrival of the 65-nanometer chips.
Now you would have thought that Zephyr would have come with the 65-nanometer IBM microprocessor. But it didn't. The Xbox 360 Elite was introduced in limited quantities and it used the older 90-nanometer chips. The design for the 65-nanometer version of the IBM chip has been ready since last year. Why didn't Microsoft introduce it earlier?
Well, Microsoft had to make a trade-off. It chose to put more of its hardware engineering team on the problem of repairing defective Xbox 360 consoles and troubleshooting how to redesign the console so that it would function properly. For whatever reason, that led to a delay in the launch of Falcon. (Maybe that tells you that hardware and chip engineers are limited quantities at Microsoft). Getting something like 65-nanometer chips out is an enormously difficult undertaking. Many chip companies have faltered in the past in such transitions, and you never know how quickly they can get them done. Clearly, Microsoft's team was challenged by the hard task of dealing with the defects and getting the Falcon project out the door. Were they stretched too thin?
So Falcon is coming later than expected. But I have confirmed that it is coming. In July, Microsoft's hardware team was in the midst of qualifying Falcon and the IBM 65-nm microprocessor so that it could get all the bugs out. Now those chips are in the first batches of the new consoles that are coming in ships across the Pacific from China, where Microsoft's contract manufacturers assemble the boxes. If they get here in time, then many of those machines could be ready for fall sales.
