Sad news to both ATI/Nvidia

[Seero]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16686/1/

TSMC 40nm is still immature

TSMC's 40nm process maturity can simply be described as disastrously bad. According to our sources, yields are currently at around 50 percent, which is catastrophic for a „mature“ and more than a year old process. One could say that TSMC is really immature about its 40 nm yields.

At this time, TSMC should be at 90 percent + yields, but this is simply not happening. The worst part is that nothing will change in early 2010. The shortage will last throughout Q1 2010 and both ATI’s RV870 and Nvidia’s Fermi will be heavily affected to their die size and complexity.

Things might start getting better in Q2 2010, but this means that you might have to wait all the way to April 2010 if not later to get more than a single 40nm card sitting on the store shelve for more than a day.

 

[jvroig]

Interesting post, Seero.

If true, this is not just sad news to ATi/nVidia. This is sad news to all of us consumers as well.

 

[v8envy]

Things might start getting better in Q2 2010, but this means that you might have to wait all the way to April 2010 if not later to get more than a single 40nm card sitting on the store shelve for more than a day.

To paraphrase 2001, "My god, it's full of bullshit!"

4770s have been around all year, and not in very short supply. If you want a 57xx card you can get one without much fanfare or gouging. NV's 210, 220 and 240 series are certainly not facing any shortages.

I have got to stop giving Fudo pageviews for his ill-informed blog.

 

[Seero]

Interesting post, Seero.

If true, this is not just sad news to ATi/nVidia. This is sad news to all of us consumers as well.

It harm us more than the vendor IMO.

 

[Wreckage]

Interesting post, Seero.

If true, this is not just sad news to ATi/nVidia. This is sad news to all of us consumers as well.

Eh, I'm still rocking the 65nm

This fits my theory that NVIDIA saw no need to launch now and decided to go with another revision to bring down costs and bring up clocks.

Besides few if any games really need the power of a 58xx/Fermi (thanks consoles).

 

[CrystalBay]

I agree with the Wreck , there is no "real" need for the new parts for current games...

And yeah ,WTF TSMC a year latter and your 40 nm process still blows..

 

[Seero]

Eh, I'm still rocking the 65nm

This fits my theory that NVIDIA saw no need to launch now and decided to go with another revision to bring down costs and bring up clocks.

Besides few if any games really need the power of a 58xx/Fermi (thanks consoles).

That I disagree. Vendors must keep themselves competitive. Everyone know the counter side of Evergreen is Fermi, yet Fermi is no where seen. This hurts Nvidia, and fanboy will jump ship soon, if not already.

As to performance, who is willing to play average settings on there expensive video card? 30-40 FPS is not acceptable for a video card that is 500 bucks US, and that is without its 3D.

If you think this hammer hit lighter on Nvidia's feet, than you are wrong. ATI user can pre-order, Nvidia user can't. TSMC must fill all the back order before working on new orders. In other words, the more sell on evergreen, the later fermi is going to come. There is no reason not to pre-order evergreen as there are no other option atm.

Now i don't know about Fab, maybe Nvidia can switch their Fab or something to fix this. I don't know.

 

[lavaheadache]

Eh, I'm still rocking the 65nm

This fits my theory that NVIDIA saw no need to launch now and decided to go with another revision to bring down costs and bring up clocks.

Besides few if any games really need the power of a 58xx/Fermi (thanks consoles).

Only you could possibly still find praise for nvidia in a thread like this. I never cease to be amazed by your stead fast stance by the nvidia god.

 

[SunnyD]

Only you could possibly still find praise for nvidia in a thread like this. I never cease to be amazed by your stead fast stance by the nvidia god.

For once, I'm going to stick up for Wreckage and say "This post has no bearing to the topic and really needn't have been posted."

Though to Wreckage's post, I wouldn't say the consoles have much to do with it. "Consoles: Lowering the bar for gamers everywhere."

 

[Wreckage]

For once, I'm going to stick up for Wreckage and say "This post has no bearing to the topic and really needn't have been posted."

Thank you.

Though to Wreckage's post, I wouldn't say the consoles have much to do with it. "Consoles: Lowering the bar for gamers everywhere."

I'm saying consoles are holding back the need for a new video card for a lot of people. Even if Fermi came out 2 months ago, I still would not buy one. My trusty 260 plays everything just fine and folds like a beast. DX11 so far has shown me nothing compelling (yet). Hopefully next year will change this, but I don't have high hopes seeing how even Carmack has gone to the dark side.

 

[schenley101]

To paraphrase 2001, "My god, it's full of bullshit!"

4770s have been around all year, and not in very short supply. If you want a 57xx card you can get one without much fanfare or gouging. NV's 210, 220 and 240 series are certainly not facing any shortages.

I have got to stop giving Fudo pageviews for his ill-informed blog.

the reason these are around is because their dies are tiny so you get many more dies per wafer

 

[nemesismk2]

To paraphrase 2001, "My god, it's full of bullshit!"

4770s have been around all year, and not in very short supply. If you want a 57xx card you can get one without much fanfare or gouging. NV's 210, 220 and 240 series are certainly not facing any shortages.

I have got to stop giving Fudo pageviews for his ill-informed blog.

I don't believe it as well, there doesn't appear to be any shortage of the 4770/5770/5750 etc. If the reports are true of ATI releasing 12 more Series 5 video cards in 2010 before Ces 2010 then I don't understand why ATI would even consider releasing that many if they had supply problems?

 

[nemesismk2]

Eh, I'm still rocking the 65nm

This fits my theory that NVIDIA saw no need to launch now and decided to go with another revision to bring down costs and bring up clocks.

Besides few if any games really need the power of a 58xx/Fermi (thanks consoles).

When is Fermi due to be released because I can't find any firm release dates anywhere?

 

[akugami]

I agree with what Wreckage is saying here. We know PC's continually improve on a yearly basis whether it is CPU or GPU performance. The console systems, due to their static nature means that there is a fixed bar as far as maximum performance goes. Even if the maximum theoretical performance is very high (such as the PS3) it still has a limit and the actual performance most can wring out of it may be much lower. So the consoles have a set performance limit and consoles are out usually for at least five years. That means that we have a certain bar that isn't going to be raised by much for about five years.

With ever rising development costs being an issue, many game engines are being built with cross platform development in mind. That means that even if the engine is flexible enough to wring higher performance from Fermi or Evergreen, it usually is optimized for performance on current consoles as well as what the performance of the current mainstream GPU's are. Which more likely than not will coincide roughly with what the current consoles are.

That means that more likely than not, gaming performance is optimized for something along the lines of a Geforce 250 or Geforce 260 and Radeon 4870 rather than for the latest or upcoming GPU's.

With all that said, if the yields really are as problematic as rumored, this is going to hit nVidia harder than ATI. The larger the GPU die size is, the more likely it'll have some sort of fatal error. If TSMC allocates the same number of wafers to both ATI and nVidia, ATI is going to get a lot more usable GPU cores because of their smaller size. Even if TSMC allocates more wafers to nVidia than ATI, it might only even things out as far as usable GPU's produced are concerned. Not looking good for having a reasonably priced Fermi or Fermi in any type of reasonable supply if the rumors are true. If anything, this would make a March Fermi launch more likely than the recently rumored January launch.

 

[Ben90]

I don't believe it as well, there doesn't appear to be any shortage of the 4770/5770/5750 etc. If the reports are true of ATI releasing 12 more Series 5 video cards in 2010 before Ces 2010 then I don't understand why ATI would even consider releasing that many if they had supply problems?

I dont remember the exact equation, but i know the chance of failure exponentially increases based on transistor count and die size. The featherweight 4770 comes in at 312M xtors, while the 5870 and 5850 come in at 1.4B. TMSC's issues will most likely hurt Nvidia the most though (if they can ever create a card) as fermi is a fatass 3B+ xtors

If memory serves me correctly, the 4890 is faster than the 5770, and a lot of people on AT were still recommending 4890s over 5770s for that specific price point. I doubt the demand for 5770/5750/210/220/240 is anything spectacular outside of OEMs from Nvidia's side.

*edit*

The console systems, due to their static nature means that there is a fixed bar as far as maximum performance goes. Even if the maximum theoretical performance is very high (such as the PS3)

The PS3 was a weaksauce gaming machine even for 2007 standards. It used a 2 year old vcard and a whopping 256mb of ram. Yea the theoretical performance from the cell processors is pretty intense, but the code needs to be optimized up the hizzle to even extract 50% from a CBEA

 

[akugami]

The PS3 was a weaksauce gaming machine even for 2007 standards. It used a 2 year old vcard and a whopping 256mb of ram. Yea the theoretical performance from the cell processors is pretty intense, but the code needs to be optimized up the hizzle to even extract 50% from a CBEA

It wasn't that weak when released. Now it certainly is not anywhere near as close to being as powerful as the Sony BS machine hyped it up to be but it's not that weak. We also have to take into consideration the resolutions that it is being asked to perform at.

 

[GaiaHunter]

We also have to take in consideration actual demand for 4770/5770/5750.

When there was demand for a card like 4770 they just weren't nowhere to be found.

5770/5750 are decent parts if you isolate them, but with GTS250/4850 vs 5750 and GTX260/4870 vs 5770, being same speed or faster for a same or cheaper price, they wont command such demand.

Now 5850 being faster/cheaper than GTX285 and the 5870 being around same speed/cheaper than the GTX295, they will sell loads.

There was some info in another thread linking to some AMD dude that said the ratio of Cypress chips to Juniper chips being made was 5:1.

 

[dflynchimp]

Only you could possibly still find praise for nvidia in a thread like this. I never cease to be amazed by your stead fast stance by the nvidia god.

Wreckage being a fan of Nvidia asides, he does have a point. It's not actually imperative that all of us consumers flock to 40nm. There are plenty of respectable parts out there on older processes. 40nm at this point is for those with the wallets and/or the die-hards that must have everything right when it comes out. It's by no means mainstream atm.

I applaud consoles for making gaming less of a hassle, but I'm gonna take my PC to the grave with me before I give up gaming on it. Cost asides, I'm just a hardware whore at heart. After all, PC is still the real driving force behind video game development from a technological standpoint. Look at RE5, which was technically built from a PC platform them ported to the consoles.

 

[Voo]

And yeah ,WTF TSMC a year latter and your 40 nm process still blows..

Yeah if we think about all the other 40nm processes out there that do SO much better, how dare they?

If TSMC's 40nm process is catastrophic, I think we'll need some new adjectives for the majority of other fabs out there..

 

[Idontcare]

Yeah if we think about all the other 40nm processes out there that do SO much better, how dare they?

If TSMC's 40nm process is catastrophic, I think we'll need some new adjectives for the majority of other fabs out there..

Yep, just think if their 40nm yields are this bad imagine how bad their 15nm yield must be

Seriously you can't imagine the torrid pace of learning cycles and hot-fixes being applied to get a 40nm node capable of even these yields, let alone this mythical ideal of what 40nm yields should be based on past results on prior nodes. With that thinking my 401k account is 8-10% higher than it was last year, which was 8-10% higher than it was in 2007.

Past performance is a friggen awesome indicator of future results

so FTW

 

[Fox5]

Yeah if we think about all the other 40nm processes out there that do SO much better, how dare they?

If TSMC's 40nm process is catastrophic, I think we'll need some new adjectives for the majority of other fabs out there..

Most of them just call it 45nm.

 

[Lead Butthead]

According to my bro (who is in that line of work) manufacturing process typically takes a couple of years to gain enough "know-how" to be called "mature." The entire affair at TSMC sounded a lot like somebody in the sales organization oversold the maturity of their 45nm process.

 

[Fox5]

According to my bro (who is in that line of work) manufacturing process typically takes a couple of years to gain enough "know-how" to be called "mature." The entire affair at TSMC sounded a lot like somebody in the sales organization oversold the maturity of their 45nm process.

If that's the case, then video cards and cpus are rarely made on a mature process.

 

[dflynchimp]

If that's the case, then video cards and cpus are rarely made on a mature process.

You're assuming that the dev cycle for a generation of die sizes only begins after the previous generation has been perfected. In truth the dev cycles for 2-3 generations could be going on at the same time, overlapping each other. It's not like we have to have 100% yields on 45nm to move to 32nm, or 55nm to 40nm. By the time a particular die size hits the market the next shrink has already been in development, regardless of whether the current process is 100%.

 

[lothar]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16686/1/

Good news.