Little crazy theory.

[jennyh]

TSMC never actually improved their 40nm yields, they just said they had. This has led to a huge shortage of 5800 series cards.

Why would TSMC say that it had improved? The answer is, they need to be seen as getting on top of the issue. Big company, lots of cash, lets pretend it's ok and take a monetary hit in order to save our reputation.

Only problem is, the yields are *still* awful, and nobody can get a 5800 series card still. Orders increased a lot, so much that 40nm went from 1% to 4% of TSMC's total revenue in Q2. They said that they expected 40nm orders to make up 10% of Q3 revenue. They were right - the ORDERS went in - there is just no product to be shown because they cant make these chips reliably. Both Nvidia and ATI cut back hugely on 55nm orders because TSMC told them that they had fixed the issues at 40nm...but it doesn't look like it to me.

Nvidia's Fermi can forget it btw - its far too big to even have a chance on this crappy 40nm process. They might get 4-5 chips per wafer...that cannot be worth it ever. I hate nvidia I really do but I'm not just saying this out of my dislike for the company - it's just not possible that Nvidia can make money on a huge die on such a terrible process.

 

[jsc]

That's certainly one explanation.

 

[mindless728]

this is why people shouldn't wait for the G300 to come out to decide if they want to get GTX3XX or HD58XX cards, with both of these being on 40nm, expect a lot of back order and few amount of chips

 

[jennyh]

mindless the real issue here is, you can hardly get hold of a g200 or 4800 either. Both companies sold out, let them go, cut back whatever in the expectation that TSMC had an improving 40nm.

I really hope both AMD and Nvidia are making TSMC pay for these issues.

 

[mindless728]

true, which means its a bad time to buy a graphics card

TSMC needs to be held with some sort of responsibility for this mess

 

[Techno-boy]

I was wondering about whether the people who bought the very first Radeon HD 4770 or those who recently bought one of the Radeon HD 5000 series that were released in Q3 2009 would encounter 40nm yield issue. These early 40nm GPU cards might already be defected?

Luckily that I did not buy any of these early 40nm GPU cards for the moment. However, I will wait until like in Christmas when TSMC would already fix this 40nm yield issue.

I felt sorry for ATI since they were able to release their DX 11 video cards this early to challenge NVIDIA but they had to delay due to TSMC 40nm yield issue...

Anyway, talking about NVIDIA's GT300 release, I don't even guarantee that NVIDIA would immediately release their GT300 cards right after when TSMC fix this problem by Christmas...

 

[nforce4max]

I might buy a 40nm gpu next year but that depends on a lot of other factors outside the tech and supply stand point.

 

[jennyh]

I bought two 4770's...but I got lucky I think. They sold out so fast, and were so incredibly cheap to start with.

I actually sold one of them for 95% of the price I bought it for 5 1/2 months ago. I got unlucky because I assumed I was upgrading to a 5850.

Now...I love AMD/ATI and the 5850 is a *monster* of a graphics card. I swear this card destroys any game you throw at it...but mine was flawed and now I don't have it. And multiple emails asking where it is, or how soon it will be back...talk about 'no comment'.

Nothing imminent, this is one of the UK's top suppliers and it has no ETA.

Availability seems better in the US at least - but there have been no 5870's or 5850's in the UK for the past 3 weeks to my knowledge.

 

[jennyh]

Fermi could be an awesome card, but it will never be made on this horrible TSMC node.

The costs per wafer need to meet certain standards. Nvidia would be prepared to take a loss on Fermi at the start - they are trying to break into or even create a new industry - but on *this* yield? What are they getting 1 gpu per wafer? Fermi would need to cost $5k per card to make that up - that's the sort of numbers we're talking about here.

 

[daedalus685]

I'd like to see the contract with TSMC.

In my line of work we often order things that will come with a few duds (radiation tolerant LEDs for instance). We get a very clear contract in terms of how many will work though, if more fail (are duds or die far from MTBF) they reimburse us, plus extra for lost mission critical time. We are not ordering raw parts, and not in the volume of a mass OEM (research and all), just a custom alteration to a mass product, but no company the size of AMD/Nvidia would tolerate a contract that allows the manufacturer to put them out of business, so to speak.

I understand that most list the prices of a wafer, a company buys a wafer and that is all, if all of the chips work then great, if none do then too bad. But there must be a point somewhere, where the yields are less than agreed upon, that tsmc will have to start paying out of its rear in penalties.. That point can't be far off.

And by the way, I was excited for more fun when I saw jennyh had made a post called crazy theory

 

[Techno-boy]

Actually, it wasn't a crazy theory because that is what had really happened like I just explained on other threads. It's simple, ATI did delayed Radeon HD 5000 series video cards because TSMC's 40nm yield got screwed again. And perhaps the early 40nm GPU cards are already kinda defected when they were released...

And by the way, I was excited for more fun when I saw jennyh had made a post called crazy theory

Funnily, I was gonna make this thread since I started posting replies concerning about TSMC's new 40nm yield issue from other threads first but jennyh stole my ideas after reading my posts and made up this thread called "little crazy theory"...

Anyway, I don't mind...

 

[sincreator]

What was flawed with your 5850 jenny? Just wondering. I just got a 5870 and I am getting a very rare driver stopped responding error, but no graphic defects. It also only happens at idle, or surfing the net. I haven't had any crashes in game yet. Knock on wood. In my case I think it's a driver issue since I can run the card at 900mhz core and 1250 memory easily for gaming and benching without issue.

My brother ordered a 5850 from the same place I got my 5870, and they told him it was a revision 2 5850. Now I'm thinking your crazy theory may not be crazy at all. He gets it tommorow so I'll have to keep an eye on it. I will be looking closely at the serials for both cards as well, just to see if there is a clear indication that his card is in fact a revision 2 5850.

PS: Both cards are Sapphire.

 

[jennyh]

Mine just crashed randomly and artifacted randomly. It was pretty strange actually, I've never had anything like that before. I've had plenty of cards that crashed or artifacted, but not in this totally random manner.

Anyway, mine was a sapphire too, I'll be looking out for that revision thing.

 

[KidHorn]

The problem may not be entirely TMSC's fault. The size of the transistors is only one facet of chip yields. It's possible the issue may be related to the complexity of the chip itself as opposed to the size of the components. Maybe the solution will end up being ATI making a few tweaks to their masks. I'm just guessing in the dark and am posting a possible alternative crazy theory.

This seems to be advantageous for NVidia. If the problems aren't resolved, no one makes money off their video cards. If the problem gets resolved, NVidia won't have to deal with what ATI has had to deal with. After reading about what Intel did to AMD, maybe NVidia paid TMSC to screw up yields. NVidia can cover themselves by claiming they're suffering also. Another wild crazy theory.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

OK, there is another possibility.
We dont know what orders the OEMs put in, and they have to have their chance as well.
Going from there, if the current 40nm chips are made on the known tooling, which was bad, and got better, runor was, TSMC had ordered and begun to run a new line or two on new tooling, and ran into the earler problems as before with the old line, meaning adjustments/fixes to those new lines. It took around 3-6 weeks to fix those problems, TSMC has said theyd have product running well by the end of the year, Richard Huddy hinted at the availability would be increased by the end of the month.
So, if they took those new ones off line, used only the old lines, itd give only 33% or so of actual production, add in the OEMs, and this also could be what were seeing, plus nVidias 40nm parts for their laptops, adding to the shortage.
Either theory may be true, and both fit. Im hoping its mine, as then wed see earlier product, with wider availibility

 

[sincreator]

I wonder why there is such an abundance of 5770's, and 5750's like someone else said. Would they be possibly be doing the same thing, or something similar as what AMD did with their x2/x3 Phenom II series CPU's? It does seem a little strange since the 5700 series use 40nm parts as well. Not to mention the 4770's from a few months back.

My theory is that they weren't selling the 4000 series cards very well anymore so they needed to deplete the stock. So they fake a 5800 series shortage to move more, while using the hype from the 5000 series cards to bring in new customers. At the same time it allows for higher prices on the 5800 series, since the demand is so huge. Maybe they realized that the 5800 was released at too low a price, and they needed a way to raise them without looking like the bad guy.

These types of shortages can provoke more sales when they do become widely available. If people can't have it they want it more. Look at the xbox 360 launch, and the wii launch. Strange that both of those launches were right around October/November as well.

It's all just crazy theories, so I figured I'd get a little crazier. lol

 

[Ehsan w]

I wonder why there is such an abundance of 5770's, and 5750's like someone else said. Would they be possibly be doing the same thing, or something similar as what AMD did with their x2/x3 Phenom II series CPU's? It does seem a little strange since the 5700 series use 40nm parts as well. Not to mention the 4770's from a few months back.

My theory is that they weren't selling the 4000 series cards very well anymore so they needed to deplete the stock. So they fake a 5800 series shortage to move more, while using the hype from the 5000 series cards to bring in new customers. At the same time it allows for higher prices on the 5800 series, since the demand is so huge. Maybe they realized that the 5800 was released at too low a price, and they needed a way to raise them without looking like the bad guy.

These types of shortages can provoke more sales when they do become widely available. If people can't have it they want it more. Look at the xbox 360 launch, and the wii launch. Strange that both of those launches were right around October/November as well.

It's all just crazy theories, so I figured I'd get a little crazier. lol

that might actually work
I've seen many people on threads recomending the 4k series just because the 57xx's aren't that great
maybe after a while they'll lower the prices on the 57xx's
but then again...the customers will feel screwed over....
it's like Ati is aiming to shoot it's own foot
i'm sure people wouldn't buy Ati cards anymore after that,
I know I wouldn't

 

[daedalus685]

I wonder why there is such an abundance of 5770's, and 5750's like someone else said. Would they be possibly be doing the same thing, or something similar as what AMD did with their x2/x3 Phenom II series CPU's? It does seem a little strange since the 5700 series use 40nm parts as well. Not to mention the 4770's from a few months back.

My theory is that they weren't selling the 4000 series cards very well anymore so they needed to deplete the stock. So they fake a 5800 series shortage to move more, while using the hype from the 5000 series cards to bring in new customers. At the same time it allows for higher prices on the 5800 series, since the demand is so huge. Maybe they realized that the 5800 was released at too low a price, and they needed a way to raise them without looking like the bad guy.

These types of shortages can provoke more sales when they do become widely available. If people can't have it they want it more. Look at the xbox 360 launch, and the wii launch. Strange that both of those launches were right around October/November as well.

It's all just crazy theories, so I figured I'd get a little crazier. lol

The 5700's are half of a 5800, even assuming linear failure that would be half the failures. Given the drop in complexity we could have yields as much as 100% higher than the 5800. Since the 5700's are the volume cards (few people buy high end) they probably ordered more as well.

It is a bit nuts to assume this shortage is manufactured. I have never in my life seen a study that showed a delay ended up selling "more." Sure there will be the odd person that was nto gonig to buy in that will after seeing it sell out.. but there will be just as many pissed off who buy something else. Not to mention the folks who have to buy right now for a new build who are getting 4890's and the like instead.

 

[microterf]

WOW, all I have to say Is I'm glad I built my system when I did. Now I can sit back and wait.

 

[jennyh]

The rumour was that apple bought all of the remaining 4800 stock but I dunno how much weight to give that one.

There is a general lack of graphics cards available, 200 and 4800 series as well so if this is a manufactured shortage they've flopped horribly.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

OK, lets look at price perf.
The pricing of the 57xx series is high to perf, not so with the 58xx series.
nOw. ask ourselves why?
They intend to move their previous series out the door, keeping channel prices elevated, offering better deals to the OEMs, as theyre more likely to use the 57xx series.
Yields are over 100% on the 57xx series, so it could go either way, TSMC doing the dog in their entire process, or, my theory/rumor based thoughts.
Look for the 57xx series prices to drop nicely once the 4xxx series competitors are cleared out of the channel, which appears to be soon, but also, lack of competition, their intro from the OEMs etc, will keep elevated prices high for awhile yet

 

[sincreator]

Mine just crashed randomly and artifacted randomly. It was pretty strange actually, I've never had anything like that before. I've had plenty of cards that crashed or artifacted, but not in this totally random manner.

Anyway, mine was a sapphire too, I'll be looking out for that revision thing.

Well my brother got his Sapphire 5850 today, and it was not a revision 2 from what I could tell. Actually my serial numbers and his almost lined up exactly the same. Anything I could look for to tell for sure?

On another note, we had a hell of a time getting the driver to stop crashing. In the end it took a motherboard chipset driver(the latest) to fix it. All is good now. BTW: I had to do the same thing, but at the time I didn't know that was what fixed it for me. I basically tried everything I could think of to get it to work, and somewhere along the line I updated my chipset driver I guess and it worked. I wasn't able to pin point the problem till today when I went through everything one by one with his card. It wasn't until I updated his chipset driver that the crashes stopped and never returned. Hope this helps some people.

 

[turboflame]

Yields are over 100% on the 57xx series

lolwut

 

[jennyh]

I think he meant better than double the 5800's, which they should be.

 

[sincreator]

Mine just crashed randomly and artifacted randomly. It was pretty strange actually, I've never had anything like that before. I've had plenty of cards that crashed or artifacted, but not in this totally random manner.

Anyway, mine was a sapphire too, I'll be looking out for that revision thing.

Well I figured I'd report back. My 5870 is still working fine, but my brothers Sapphire 5850 just started to crash over and over. I took his card and put it in my system and the same things were happening. He had to wait for a month to get his card, and if he RMA's it, it will probally be another 2/3 months before he gets it back. He isn't very happy right now.