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AMD Graphics Chips Could Last 10X To 100X Longer

Posted by kdawson on from the bumping-the-solder dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to a research report out of UCLA, released this morning, NVidia's high-lead bump packaging could last anywhere from 1/10th to 1/100th as long as AMD's advanced eutectic bump approach. (TG Daily has picked up the claim.) NVidia is currently in the midst of a $200M recall of bad GPUs, and the report suggests that the issue could be much deeper than NVidia's PR department would have us believe." The report lends credence to the strident claims of the Inquirer's Charlie Demerjian, which we discussed a month back.

12 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Huh? by TinFoilMan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The report lends credence to the strident claims of the Enquirer's Charlie Demerjian

    As in National Enquirer?
    As in Real news?

    --
    Oh Well, Neutral Karma and all . . .

    --
    In my other life, I eat cats.
  2. To Quote from 'Count Zero'... by lobiusmoop · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Silicon doesn't wear out; microchips were effectively immortal. The Wig took notice of the fact. Like every other child of his age, however, he knew that silicon became obsolete, which was worse than wearing out"

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    1. Re:To Quote from 'Count Zero'... by Detritus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The silicon may not wear out but I've seen pictures from an electron microscope that show that the metal interconnects can deteriorate and fail. See electromigration.

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    2. Re:To Quote from 'Count Zero'... by IorDMUX · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you're building chips where electromigration is an issue within any half-reasonable time span, you're doing it wrong.

      --
      >> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
  3. More data please! by unix_geek_512 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What does 1/10th and 1/100th actually mean in standard solar days?

    Can someone please provide a plot of the various solders and their performance vs. temperature and time?

    I would like to see the plots for ====>

    90Pb10Sn
    60Pb40Sn
    97Sn2.5Ag0.5Cu
    99.3Sn0.7Cu
    96Sn4Ag
    99.25Sn0.75Cu

    What is the risk associated with Tin? Especially Tin whiskers.

    What kind of solders does the slashdot community use?

  4. Re:Sweet! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While it's great that all your cards lasted so long, none of that is relevant. The eutectic/high-lead solder thing is really only hitting the post-G80 cards as far as anyone knows. G80 (8800GTX and first gen 8800GTS) and earlier used a different solder mix. The current Nvidia high-lead solders are failing at an unusual rate, which is what's being discussed.

    Thanks for your meaningless data, though!

  5. Re:Sweet! by adolf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    why would anyone want to spend 50$ on a 3 year old card when they can get a 1 year old "better" card for 90$

    Perhaps someone only has $60, and still wants to eat for the rest of the day.

    *shrug*

    Generally, your "insightful" rhetorical question is absurd, like this: Why would anyone want to spend $50,000 on a 3-year-old Corvette when they can get a better 1-year-old Corvette C6 Z06 for $90,000?

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    Kid-proof tablet..
  6. So how can they sell these in Europe? by Dr.+Mu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With the lead content, they're not RoHS-compliant.

  7. Re:So Do nVidias last 3 months, or ATIs 30-300 yea by strstrep · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Typical failure models use an exponential distribution, rather than a Gaussian distribution to model time-to-failure.

  8. Re:Sweet! by hamster_nz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, I just built a home NAS server, 2TB of disk, Gigabit NIC, S3 Virge PCI 2MB graphics... who could ask for anything more!

  9. Re:So Do nVidias last 3 months, or ATIs 30-300 yea by Repossessed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can confirm the putting pressure on the warranty part. Dell just ran out of replacement Nvidia cards for the D620. 15 day wait list if yours fails.

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    Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
  10. What recall? by celest · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "NVidia is currently in the midst of a $200M recall of bad GPUs"

    Last I checked, they reserved $200M on their financial sheets in case they needed to deal with the chips. I've heard nothing about an official recall? Only thing I can find is a lot of angry resellers who are demanding a recall.

    Correct me if I'm wrong?