Does anyone know the "yield ratio" of 3dfx products?

[ssjgokou1]

I heard that there yield is 10%, that's big!!!

 

[Finality]

10% is big?

I think thats pathetic. I doubt it will be that low that number sounds like Crackbus ratios.

 

[pm]

Is this some kind of troll? 10% is not remotely "big". Their chips are made by TSMC and neither TSMC nor 3Dfx are disclosing their yield, but my guess would somewhere in the 60-70% range.

 

[Michael]

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?id=1250006014728000&sort=postdate

Michael

 

[ssjgokou1]

you are saying that 70% of the boards have problems? It's more like 10%, which is still a lot.

You guys are crazy.

 

[ssjgokou1]

look, batt! I read up that "yield" ratios from companies are usually dependent on having lower (better) so if it's 90 to 10, then 10% of stuff is bad, but some companies (which do reveal their ratios) say that there are somwhere in the 95% range! So what's here to understand?

 

[Marty]

Yield refers to the percentage of chips that work at a given frequency. For example, Intel has a low yield at 1GHz. It has nothing to do with the PCBs. Now, since 3dfx is a fabless company, the chip yields have nothing directly to do with them. Rather, they have something to do with TSMC. Their yield is apparently 70%, or better than expected. Not the 10% you obviously incorrectly stated.

Marty

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Good grief, 3dfx' problems have nothing to do with chip yields, nor board reject rates - they simply did not get all the silicon they were promised by TSMC. nVidia will come up short too, no doubt.

I follow TSMC closely, as I own a good deal of their stock. They are so backlogged it's not funny, and 3D chips are likely not their main priority right now - more like FLASH, DSP's, and anything else related to telecom & other wireless. TSMC has acquired 3 additional fabs in recent months, yet their CEO says they need 2-3 more just to meet current orders. Such is the state of the semiconductor industry in general ...

 

[Pete]

Just look up yield in the dictionary, you'll see it (roughly) means what you get out of something. Thus a yield of 70% means that 70% of the chips TSMC makes for 3dfx are viable for retail sale. 90% yield would be fantastic, but for a .25mm fab at 166MHz, I don't see why it would be unreachable--I mean, .25mm has been done for quite a while now.

 

[Marty]

Pete, its not .25mm - its .25 micron! If it were .25mm...

Marty

 

[Pete]

Thought so. I actually wrote .25mu at first, but then I thought it looked wrong. Guess I have to cut back on that late-night posting .