The new Nintendo system-code-named Dolphin-will rely on two key chips. The first chip, Gekko, will be a highly-customized PowerPC CPU and memory device, and the second will be a graphics engine. The CPU chip is being designed by IBM, and the graphics chip by startup ArtX Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.). The chips are expected to tape out shortly, on schedule for a Nintendo product launch in time for the year-2000 holiday season.

The win was a stunning turnabout for Nintendo, which worked closely — in a highly-publicized relationship — with NEC Corp., Silicon Graphics and SGI's MIPS subsidiary to develop the current Nintendo 64 console. "We have a long-standing relationship with NEC," said Nintendo software engineering manager Jim Merrick, "but IBM was there with unique price/performance, the right technology and perfect timing."

"We brought our best design skills, our top technology and our production capabilities to the party for this," added John Kelly, general manager of IBM Microelectronics. "I think it was an important factor that we are already running our 0.18-micron production copper process in two fabs, and could show our ability to ramp to the kind of volume Nintendo needs on their schedule."

A major implication of the choice for Nintendo is the move from the Nintendo 64's MIPS architecture to the PowerPC architecture. "PowerPC was a logical choice, and is attractive for a number of reasons," Merrick said. "But as to whether we made the agreement because we wanted the PowerPC, I'd say it would be hard to break out just one piece of the agreement and say that it was the determining factor."

The change of CPU architecture will have some impact on Nintendo's design process and possibly that of their game developers as well. Much code, including Nintendo's proprietary operating system, the game logic and physical simulation, must execute on the host CPU. But today much of that code is written in C. "There are still some hand-crafted assembly routines, but they are a small, specialized subset of the code package," Merrick said.

Even for the C portion of the task, however, Nintendo and its game developers will be working with a new compiler. "We started with a PowerPC core, but we are doing some very unique things to it to meet Nintendo's needs," Kelly said. "The chip will require a new optimizing compiler."

In addition to the augmented CPU core — which will not, by the way, be compliant with the recently announced Book E specification for embedded PowerPCs — the 400-MHz CPU chip will contain "a very unique memory interface." Kelly would not be specific about the configuration, but the chip may be levering IBM's substantial capability in embedded DRAM to improve local-memory bandwidth.The CPU chip will share an intimate interface with its graphics co-processor. The latter chip, about which little was disclosed, will be the imaging heart of the system, responsible for translating 3-D graphics command strings from the CPU chip into rendered images.

The design is being done by ArtX, a graphics chip design house whose engineers, ironically enough, are for the most part from Silicon Graphics. IBM will not manufacture the ArtX processor, an IBM spokesman said.

The announcements were sobering, but not actually news, to MIPS. The company had reported in its most recent S1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Nintendo 64 business made up a significant portion of MIPS quarterly revenue — 75 percent in the first six months of fiscal 1999 — and that MIPS would not participate in future Nintendo designs. Thus the source of three quarters of the company's current revenue will dwindle as the Nintendo 64 ramps down and is replaced by the Dolphin system.