Sony is in a world of hurt

[wacki]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32978

10-20% yields. Is this as bad as I think it is? What are the yields on the 360 intel?

 

[n7]

Oddly enough, though i hate Sony, i kinda want to see more Blu-Ray action.

 

[Cooler]

Wii ,360, and PS3 CPUS are all built by IBM. There was nice rant artcle on this site that said that next gen would have been better off using AMD or Intel CPUS. Basicly in order prossing should have never been put into these IBM based CPUS.

 

[Kromis]

I hope Sony stays in their world and/or get pwned in mines! BTW, I got that from this one shirt I bought from Jinx (G4? Anyone?) and I'm loving it!

Pwned!

Down with Sony! I hope they rot in hell! Yay Nintendo and Microsoft (although they are in a world of hurt also: fines, fines, fines...)!

 

[broly8877]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/broly8877/sonye3e.jpg

 

[DrMrLordX]

So much for the cell hype. I knew this wouldn't work out for them, but I didn't know it would be this bad. They were planning on integrating Cell into just about every device they sold. What're they going to do now?

 

[R3MF]

i never understand this sony hatred that drips like vitriol from so many internet users.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I don't see anyone here hating Sony except n7. I just didn't think Cell was a good idea. Sony would have been better off releasing a die-shrunk version of the Emotion Engine at a higher clock speed or something like that, and using it plus much more RAM in the PS3. But nooooo . . .

eh, what do I know.

 

[Zim]

Originally posted by: R3MF
i never understand this sony hatred that drips like vitriol from so many internet users.

Well wake up and smell the coffee. Sony wants to own your soul.

The name Sony once stood for quality products at elevated prices, but now it just stands for elevated prices. On top of that, they have become one of the most monopolistic companies on the planet. They own the music you listen to and the movies you watch. They own the players you play them on. They own the media formats they are stored on. They actively work against open standards and promote their own overpriced proprietry crap. I could go on... but hopefully you get the picture. In short, this is not a company that has the interest of the consumer at heart.

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: R3MF
i never understand this sony hatred that drips like vitriol from so many internet users.

It's quite simple. If you hack into one of Sony's computers you could spend several years in prison, and owe them hundreds of thousands of dollars. When Sony gets caught hacking into your computer they get away with writing you a $10 check.

There's also DRM, incompatible formats, being members of both the RIAA and the MPAA, and just their annoying arrogance over inferior overpriced products.

 

[DirthNader]

Originally posted by: ZimThe name Sony once stood for quality products at elevated prices, but now it just stands for elevated prices. On top of that, they have become one of the most monopolistic companies on the planet...

Yup. I used to be Sony whore, when their consumer electronics were worth the price premium. My television, VCR, first-gen DVD player, digital camera, etc... all Sony.

Their quality has dropped but the prices remain. Tack on the above mentioned involvement with the RIAA / DRM / etc and the rootkit fiasco, and I now avoid them like the plague.

I'm slowly starting to replace all of the consumer electronics in the house, and Sony isn't even on my radar.

 

[freethrowtommy]

I am happy to see Sony finally falling apart. It is about time that their overpriced ****** comes back to bite them in the ass!

 

[Bobthelost]

I love my sony stereo and my earbuds, but thier attitude to the consumer is shite. Getting spares for thier products is outsourced and done badly to boot. Their software is beyond a joke...

All in all they piss me off.

 

[R3MF]

if they fall and M$ reigns supreme in the console world then the console bois had better watch out.

here's hoping the PS3 is better than the 360, or at least good enough to maintain their market share against M$

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: R3MF
if they fall and M$ reigns supreme in the console world then the console bois had better watch out.

here's hoping the PS3 is better than the 360, or at least good enough to maintain their market share against M$

Sony has enough money to recoup and make another system.

Here's hoping Nintendo stays afloat for the next few generations. What will they do once Wii wears out?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: R3MF
blah blah blah M$ blah blah M$ blah

Fix your goddamn S key and/or "$"TFU.

- M4H

 

[pm]

From the original article linked by the Inq:

Defects. It becomes a bigger problem the bigger the chip is. With chips that are one-by-one and silicon germanium, we can get yields of 95 percent. With a chip like the Cell processor, you?re lucky to get 10 or 20 percent. If you put logic redundancy on it, you can double that. It?s a great strategy, and I?m not sure anyone other than IBM is doing that with logic. Everybody does it with DRAM.

The mistake in the last line is a little surprising... that "DRAM" should be "SRAM". But anyway, he has a point that there's not a lot of logic redudancy in microprocessors.

Given the size of Cell, 10% yield to die is too low to be feasible for manufacturing - even for a top-of-the-line server part, which it isn't. That would give them about 25 die per wafer (based 235mm^2 die size and 300mm wafer, some calculations and some guesses). That's 4000 wafers to get 100k units. This is not economically feasible for a consumer-level part. Even at the high end of the range given, 40% (20% times 2 for logic redudancy) it is still a very expensive part to manufacture which seems more suited to servers than a console.

Given that the quote doesn't make economic sense, I wonder if there's confusion between what he considers yield and what the rest of the world considers yield.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: pm
From the original article linked by the Inq:

Defects. It becomes a bigger problem the bigger the chip is. With chips that are one-by-one and silicon germanium, we can get yields of 95 percent. With a chip like the Cell processor, you?re lucky to get 10 or 20 percent. If you put logic redundancy on it, you can double that. It?s a great strategy, and I?m not sure anyone other than IBM is doing that with logic. Everybody does it with DRAM.

The mistake in the last line is a little surprising... that "DRAM" should be "SRAM". But anyway, he has a point that there's not a lot of logic redudancy in microprocessors.

I think he was just refering to the fact that DRAM manufactures build in redundency, if there are some bad cells, they just re-route the non-functioning cells, to some extra functional cells.

 

[daballard]

Originally posted by: pm
From the original article linked by the Inq:

Defects. It becomes a bigger problem the bigger the chip is. With chips that are one-by-one and silicon germanium, we can get yields of 95 percent. With a chip like the Cell processor, you?re lucky to get 10 or 20 percent. If you put logic redundancy on it, you can double that. It?s a great strategy, and I?m not sure anyone other than IBM is doing that with logic. Everybody does it with DRAM.

The mistake in the last line is a little surprising... that "DRAM" should be "SRAM". But anyway, he has a point that there's not a lot of logic redudancy in microprocessors.

He's talking about the dynamic RAM on the silicon itself. Extra cache lines for redundacy (DRAM) as opposed to an extra logic core in silicon that will only be used if another core is faulty.

 

[zephyrprime]

The cell must have a humongeous die to have such horrible yields. Could the real reason the ps3 is delayed so much maybe because they need a smaller process generation to make the cell efficiently?

 

[kpamir]

so what im wondering is HOW the HELL is sony gonna be able to meet their set release date, and if they do how can they have enough systems to meet demand?

people are gonna make crazy money off of these things through ebay.

 

[pm]

Originally posted by: daballard
He's talking about the dynamic RAM on the silicon itself. Extra cache lines for redundacy (DRAM) as opposed to an extra logic core in silicon that will only be used if another core is faulty.

DRAM isn't used on microprocessors, SRAM is. There are a couple of non-mainstream CPU's that have on-die DRAM, but the majority do not use dynamic RAM but static RAM.

It is correct to say that DRAM uses redundancy, but the discussion is on CPU's and he says "It?s a great strategy, and I?m not sure anyone other than IBM is doing that with logic. Everybody does it with DRAM." I interpreted "everyone" to mean all CPU design companies - that's the context of the discussion. CPU manufacturers have been employing redundancy in SRAM caches for well over a decade. And yet, with a couple of non-mainstream exceptions, no one uses embedded DRAM on microprocessors.

I know that I am quibbling over terms, but it struck me as a pretty strange thing for him to say in the context of how he said it. No matter what, it's a minor point and I don't mean to dwell on it. It just seemed like a strange thing for him to say in the context of the discussion.

The cell must have a humongeous die to have such horrible yields. Could the real reason the ps3 is delayed so much maybe because they need a smaller process generation to make the cell efficiently?

It's about twice as big as a Prescott or a Conroe. I'm not quite sure what would cause the yields to be that low.

 

[dexvx]

Its hard to tell what "successful" yield means, because it varies.

If you assume a 20% success rate at 3.2Ghz (PS3's rated speed) with 8SPE's at V volts, lowering the requirement to 7SPE's can increase yield by X%. However, decreasing the clock speed to 3Ghz can also increase the yield by Y%. Another way to increase yields is to increase stock voltage. If you increase V by a factor or 10%, it can increase yield by another Z%.

Is Sony screwed from a hardware POV? No. They can:

1) Only have units with 7 funcitonal SPEs (+X%)
2) Lower clock to 3.0Ghz (+Y%)
3) Increase default voltage by 10% (+Z%)

They can easily turn a dismal 20% yield to over 50% by those factors just by modifying the rules of the yield.

 

[CyborgNinja117]

low yields eh? 10-20%? ps3 will be ******... cell was a bad idea since 7 cores... i dont see next gen games using that many cores.. the only good thing is their GPU... RSX sumthing

 

[neothe0ne]

Sony just isn't doing well, period. The taxation by Europe for Sony pretending PS2 was a computer, the taxation from Japan, the backfire of the Netherlands PSP ad campaign, the backfire of the USA graffiti campaign, the lame commercials (PSP is a nut I can play with lawl), the poor sales of PSP (Nintendo DS is now outselling it in all regions, by a huge margin), the flop of UMD, the poor proprietary format of Atrac3... not to mention VAIO computers are overpriced and what else?

I hope they tank.