Xenon (processor)

Microsoft XCPU, codenamed Xenon, is a CPU used in the Xbox 360 game console, to be used with ATI's Xenos graphics chip.

Not to be confused with the ATI Xenos (also used in the Xbox 360 as the GPU), or the unrelated Intel Xeon or Intel Xe.
Not to be confused with Xenon.
"Waternoose" redirects here. For the fictional character, see Henry J. Waternoose.
Microsoft XCPU
(codenamed Xenon)
Picture of the microprocessor (XCPU-ES shown).
General information
Designed byIBM
Common manufacturer(s)
Cache
L1 cache32/32 KB
L2 cache1 MB
Architecture and classification
Instruction setPowerPC
Physical specifications
Cores
  • 3 cores
POWER, PowerPC, and Power ISA architectures
NXP (formerly Freescale and Motorola)
IBM
IBM/Nintendo
Other
Related links
Cancelled in gray, historic in italic

The processor was developed by Microsoft and IBM under the IBM chip program codenamed "Waternoose", which was named after the Monsters, Inc. character Henry J. Waternoose III. The development program was originally announced on November 3, 2003.

The processor is based on IBM PowerPC instruction set architecture. It consists of three independent processor cores on a single die. These cores are slightly modified versions of the PPE in the Cell processor used on the PlayStation 3. Each core has two symmetric hardware threads (SMT), for a total of six hardware threads available to games. Each individual core also includes 32 KB of L1 instruction cache and 32 KB of L1 data cache.

The XCPU processors were manufactured at IBM's East Fishkill, New York fabrication plant and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (now part of GlobalFoundries) in Singapore. Chartered reduced the fabrication process in 2007 to 65 nm from 90 nm, thus reducing manufacturing costs for Microsoft.

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