TSMC 40nm fixed?

[thilanliyan]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=239111

 

[Barfo]

*crosses fingers*

 

[akugami]

This is getting to be almost like the "Cell phones causes brain cancer" "Cell phones don't cause brain cancer" announcement/studies.

TSMC, solve the issue so that we can move on! I'm sure millions of gamers (regardless of whether they wear green or red glasses) will be happy that you solved the issue.

 

[v8envy]

Wow, Charlie just doesn't get the whole recession thing, does he. Plenty of high tech firms are operating on a skeleton crew barely keeping the lights on.

Things that "should be" caught aren't, simply because the department in charge of overseeing that the process was "rightsized" to zero people early in 2008.

Too bad about not being available for Black Friday, but I now have hope of getting a 5850 in 2009 rather than 2010. Go TSMC!

 

[SlowSpyder]

I read that story yesterday on Charlie's site. His last few lines are

"With that in mind, the sheer incompetence of this error, coupled with the sheer incompetence of the metrology, makes you wonder if it was actually by chance. From there, things get really odd."

I'm not entirely sure what he's getting at, but took it as he's hinting that somehow Nvidia convinced TSMC to hold back their 40nm process, some sort of sabotage? Maybe that TSMC isn't too happy with AMD creating a competitor for TSMC in Global Foundries? I'm not entirely sure. Either seems like a pretty big stretch even by Charlie's standards.

Maybe it's nothing like that and my reading comprehension fails me. Any ideas?

 

[Lonyo]

I read that story yesterday on Charlie's site. His last few lines are

[q]With that in mind, the sheer incompetence of this error, coupled with the sheer incompetence of the metrology, makes you wonder if it was actually by chance. From there, things get really odd.[/q]

I'm not entirely sure what he's getting at, but took it as he's hinting that somehow Nvidia convinced TSMC to hold back their 40nm process, some sort of sabotage? Maybe that TSMC isn't too happy with AMD creating a competitor for TSMC in Global Foundries? I'm not entirely sure. Either seems like a pretty big stretch even by Charlie's standards.

Maybe it's nothing like that and my reading comprehension fails me. Any ideas?

That would be a horribly idiotic move on the part of TSMC.
OK, so ATI are going to be moving to GF (one would reasonably assume), but the last thing you want to do as a fab is highlight the problems of an (essentially, it seems) one top fab system.
The only thing TSMC would achieve by messing AMD around is to basically say to the world "We are a fab, we can potentially have issues, you would be wiser to hedge your bets and look at this new company (GF) on the basis that we can have reliability issues, and putting all your eggs in one basket is, as we can see from the experience of AMD/ATI, a terrible idea that can seriously damage your ability to sell a product. Please make sure that you try and work with both us and our competitor to ensure that you don't find yourself in such a situation where you are at the mercy of out ability, or inability, to produce your product."

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

It sounds to me like the article is saying that their explanation of the problem is bogus, because the problem they identify shouldn't have taken anywhere near this long to find, meaning someone is lying about it in order to make it sound better than it really is. Which, to me, implies that its going to be broken for a while still.

 

[SlowSpyder]

That would be a horribly idiotic move on the part of TSMC.
OK, so ATI are going to be moving to GF (one would reasonably assume), but the last thing you want to do as a fab is highlight the problems of an (essentially, it seems) one top fab system.
The only thing TSMC would achieve by messing AMD around is to basically say to the world "We are a fab, we can potentially have issues, you would be wiser to hedge your bets and look at this new company (GF) on the basis that we can have reliability issues, and putting all your eggs in one basket is, as we can see from the experience of AMD/ATI, a terrible idea that can seriously damage your ability to sell a product. Please make sure that you try and work with both us and our competitor to ensure that you don't find yourself in such a situation where you are at the mercy of out ability, or inability, to produce your product."

I pretty much thought the same thing, that they'd only hurt themselves by doing something like that. And the legal problems if their was some kind of conspiracy that was found out...

It sounds to me like the article is saying that their explanation of the problem is bogus, because the problem they identify shouldn't have taken anywhere near this long to find, meaning someone is lying about it in order to make it sound better than it really is. Which, to me, implies that its going to be broken for a while still.

He said "it makes you wonder if it was actually by chance." I took that as him pushing towards some conspiracy theory of some sort. And we all know he dislikes Nvidia. But like I said, maybe it was just the way I read it. Time for me to go read it again and see if I'm just not too sharp.

 

[Arglebargle]

I have a very good friend who worked at a board shop that was once top drawer: They got sold to another corporation, an evil and greedy group. Almost immediately, they pink slipped the safety crew out completely, and cut the maintenance department down to one guy. Soon they were trying to boost the production by a factor of ten. There was one competant shift, who in addition to their regular duties, were faced with fixing the screw ups of the other two shifts. Incompetant workers were not replaced by new hires, they were all given 50-60 hour shifts for months, increasing the failure rates.

The management and top engineers would use out of spec ingredients, non milspec on milspec builds, send out known bad boards, etc; all to get stuff out in time for that quarterly bonus. Engineers would order things done that were very likely to fail, and then doctor the paperwork to make it look like they hadn't forced the issue. They went from procedures that marked failed boards to rules that said they were never to mark failed boards. They ran equipment at 25% efficiency that the manual said were never to be run at less than 75% efficiency; the cost to replace components was too high, and the downtime to recalibrate too long.

And these weren't parts going into Furbys, these were made for medical equipment and the armed forces. This board shop operated for about three years like this before finally getting shut down.

So, yeah, this sort of thing can happen, and it can go on for lots longer than you'd think. Even without complete idiots at the helm.

 

[Nemesis 1]

I pretty much thought the same thing, that they'd only hurt themselves by doing something like that. And the legal problems if their was some kind of conspiracy that was found out...



He said "it makes you wonder if it was actually by chance." I took that as him pushing towards some conspiracy theory of some sort. And we all know he dislikes Nvidia. But like I said, maybe it was just the way I read it. Time for me to go read it again and see if I'm just not too sharp.

Does it really matter right now? When the issue is resolved it will be resolved. A comspirecy probabably not since TSMC has all eyes on it. They are going to have to say what problem was. If its legit it will show if its not true . AMD/ATI may get damages . But for now its all gossip. The watch group is all over this one. If someyjing underhanded it will come out . But to me it looks like TSMC is just not competant. But who knows.

 

[Idontcare]

But to me it looks like TSMC is just not competant. But who knows.

Not picking on you Nemesis but I see a lot of these kinds of posts extolling the incompetence of TSMC as the reason for 40nm yield/capacity/supply issues and I find it funny.

If TSMC is incompetent then what do we say about UMC, Chartered, IBM, GloFo, Intel, and every other fab owner out there right now who's yield and capacity on 40nm bulk-Si is zero or less than TSMC's?

I guess everyone in this industry is incompetent, TSMC is just less incompetent than everyone else who has yet to bring their 40nm CMOS to the marketspace.

Show me a foundry that has superior 40nm yields and capacity to TSMC at this time and then we can start discussing the degree of incompetence necessary to generate the gap...but right now the gap is everyone else to TSMC, not TSMC to anyone else.

We want to bitch about TSMC's glass being only half-full but look around and realize they are the only one's who even have a glass to be filled.