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AMD Graphics Chip Shortage Hits PC Vendors

Posted by Soulskill on from the at-least-tsmc-is-consistent dept.

CWmike writes "An offshore AMD foundry is having trouble ramping up production of a new 40-nanometer GPU, forcing PC makers to delay shipments of desktop and laptop computers, AMD confirmed today. TSMC is struggling to get up to speed manufacturing AMD's 5800 series, 40-nm GPUs, according to Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat. He added that the foundry is in full production, but so far yields are below expectation. Matt Davis, a spokesman for AMD, confirmed that TSMC is having issues with production of the chips. He added that it's not clear how far behind the foundry is on production expectations. 'The design is sound. It's just a matter of trying to get TSMC to a point where they can yield. They're feeling the manufacturing crunch,' said Davis. 'We're a little bit under yield but we're working back into a manufacturing schedule we want for these parts. TSMC can only kick them out so fast at this point.' He said that PC vendors are being affected but declined to say how many vendors are feeling the pinch or which ones. 'It's the end of the whip,' he added. '[The vendors] are going to have a hard time.'" A post at Anandtech suggests we'll see price hikes for the 5800-series Radeons until this situation sorts itself out.

25 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. TSMC by cheesybagel · · Score: 4, Informative

    NVIDIA also manufactures their GPUs at TSMC. TSMC is the largest foundry, but it has competitors like UMC, Chartered and SMIC. TSMC probably has more revenue than all those combined however...

  2. This is where Intel rules by haruchai · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They're not called Chipzilla for nothing. I can't remember the last time Intel had poor yields ( or were admitting to it)
    but this has been an issue for pretty much everyone else for years, particularly AMD.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    1. Re:This is where Intel rules by cheesybagel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      AMD actually used to have some of the best fabs in the business. They managed to have good yields and mixed production in the same plant. AMD started using copper before Intel for e.g. That part of the business was spun-off as Global Foundries. But yeah, Intel has the best production research and facilities in the industry. It is just that they don't share their fabs with anyone else.

    2. Re:This is where Intel rules by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Part of the problem in particular with this one seems to be the process. TSMC has decided to blaze their own trail as it were and is going outside the ITRS roadmap. You'll note it says 40nm chips and that's not a typo. They have a 40nm process, whereas pretty much everything else (like Intel and AMD CPUs) are 45nm currently and working on moving to 32nm.

      Ok well this roadmap with set nodes isn't for nothing. You don't semiconductor manufacturing in a vacuum, the foundries buy hardware from a number of companies to be able to make their fab work. As such it is useful if everyone has a common goal to work on. If machines for one step are for one process and machines for another are for a different process, you have problems.

      Well TSMC has decided to go ahead and make their own process, not something part of the ITRS standard. Ok well that means they are buying some custom equipment or modifying the procedure or the like.

      The result? Well it seems to be poor yields. They had a lot of trouble bringing it online, took longer than they planned, and now it doesn't work as well as they'd hoped.

      This isn't isn't entirely surprising. How well it works out for them in the long run remains to be seen. They do have the smallest process on the market now as far as I'm aware and both nVidia and ATi are placing orders using it. However I wonder if they'll be shopping elsewhere for future cards, given the problems this is having. They can't change what they've got now (a design for one process doesn't work on another as is) but they can change what they do in the future.

      You are also correct, Intel rocks at fabs. They generally beat just about everyone to market with on a new node and they seem to be able to keep yields high enough to meet demand and keep prices at whatever level they like.

    3. Re:This is where Intel rules by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      True, but there was an article about why they (knowingly) do it this way. (Somewhere at AnandTech, afaicr; perhaps the GlobalFoundries article?)

      I believe the gist of it was that the pace of GPU refreshes is much shorter than CPU's, and consequently it makes economic sense to both design-for and migrate to so-called half-node production steps. Both AMD (ATI) and NVIDIA been doing it this way for a while now, and I believe it has burned them in the past as well.

      ButJudging by the fact that they continue down the same path, though, means it must make some kind of economic sense for them.

    4. Re:This is where Intel rules by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're not called Chipzilla for nothing. I can't remember the last time Intel had poor yields ( or were admitting to it)
      but this has been an issue for pretty much everyone else for years, particularly AMD.

      Oh, they've had poor yields at times. But they can often make up for it -- a big part of being 'zilla -- with their sheer manufacturing capacity. Low yields just means their costs are higher, not that they can't supply customers. It has happened though that they had to "paper launch" products in the past. Though saying they've had poor yields should not be taken to imply that their fab tech isn't absolutely top notch -- low yields happens to everyone. ;) But it's that fab tech times their fab size that makes them chipzilla.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    5. Re:This is where Intel rules by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      AMD actually used to have some of the best fabs in the business. They managed to have good yields and mixed production in the same plant. AMD started using copper before Intel for e.g. That part of the business was spun-off as Global Foundries. But yeah, Intel has the best production research and facilities in the industry. It is just that they don't share their fabs with anyone else.

      True, but AMD also had a problem with capacity - they literally had to have good yields because their fabs were often running at full capacity because they were always backordered. I can't remember a time when AMD had excess production capacity. Heck, it was often why AMD's chips were poor overclockers - they got binned at their highest speed they were stable at and sold because demand was such that there was no spare chips.

      Also why Apple didn't go AMD - Apple has way too much experience being burned by Motorola and IBM both being unable to supply chips in heavy demand. And AMD would've killed for the Apple contract given the way Apple orders parts. But it would pretty much mean that there would be no AMD chips for anyone else.

      Heck, it might've been why Microsoft switched from AMD to Intel for the original Xbox. Production problems caused a very expensive redesign for Microsoft and nVidia (to create an Intel compatible chipset).

      Intel's got huge fab capacity, and can oversupply quite easily. In fact, there's so much oversupply that Intel often holds back production of faster chips and waits for AMD to catch up to keep prices up. Also why Intel can do special fab runs for customers (like how all Apple's chips support VT, or the special chip in the MacBook Air, etc).

      The only real production problems I remember are the special Pentium 3 1.13GHz processors. Which were basically just overclocked Pentium 3s and Intel was called out on it when systems were crashing.

    6. Re:This is where Intel rules by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well they've only done it once before, that was with TSMC's 55nm process. Prior to that, all GPUs I am aware of were on ITRS nodes. In terms of the 55nm chips they did get a bit burned on supply but it worked pretty well, more or less. Of course while 55nm was non standard, it wasn't blazing new ground. When TSMC was bringing 55nm online, Intel already had 45nm products for sale. Also from my understanding their 55nm process was more or less a shrink on the 65nm process they have. Not much changes in terms of design and implementation. Not so on the 40nm process, it might be a shrink from a 45nm process, but they don't have one of those. They go from 55nm to 40nm, nothing in the middle.

      That nVidia and ATi with with it doesn't surprise me. At the time they were designing these chips, nobody else really had the capacity to take their orders (Global Foundries wasn't up and running when these were starting design) and in graphics there is a heavy push for smaller. GPUs use too much power and give off too much heat. Anything you can do to lower that is good, because it means you can have more power. GPUs also can scale to pretty ridiculous levels since they are so parallel so there's always the possibility of adding more transistors if you've got the power/silicon budget. So makes sense to me they'd try TSMC's 40nm process.

      Also, when they did it, they didn't know how bad it'd be. If they could have seen to now, I think perhaps it would have been different. Like I said, there were some problems on the 55nm process, but not big ones. The 40nm process has been much more problematic.

      We'll see what they do next. TSMC hasn't said, publicly at least, what the next process is they are bringing online or when. Global foundries is saying they can take 32nm orders now for delivery in early 2010. So perhaps TSMC will lose out on the next gen of cards.

  3. Not so worried by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 2, Funny

    The big vendors who I trust already have built their inventory and this is just a temporary glitch in their manufacturing process. It's hardly something to be concerned about.

    For Joe's Custom PCs and Feed Lot (or Dell), this may be a problem.

    Should you go with an OEM who is well known and sells large volumes? Or should you stick with mom 'n pop PC assembly shops? I think it's like asking whether you should buy American or Chinese. Sure, one is cheaper but is it worth the lead poisoning?

  4. Still has a lead on nVidia by Singularity42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From a faked board to rumors about really bad yields, nVidia won't show up until next year. Sure, it'll probably be faster, but they clearly had to sacrifice something to focus on high-end computing with features like ECC and double-precision. My 4890 is serving me pretty well for now.

    1. Re:Still has a lead on nVidia by cheesybagel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      NVIDIA's scared enough of Intel and Larabee to be doing stuff like this.

    2. Re:Still has a lead on nVidia by JoeSixpack00 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is how nVidia always manages to stay on top: assumption.

      I don't know why, but people always assume that nVidia parts are at the least equal, and for the most part better than ATi. Granted they have been in the past, but anyone savvy enough to know about graphics cards should also know how much things can change with every next generation.

      I've heard people actually say "It's safe to say that the HD 3800 was pretty much a failure". That had to be one of the dumbest comments I've ever heard from a so-called "true gamer".

    3. Re:Still has a lead on nVidia by KillShill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They always manage to stay on top because they are a monopolist in the gfx industry. They are the Inte£/Micro$oft of their respective industry.

      Remember the partial precision era (5800)? They just happened to continue using PP well up to the 8 series...

      3Dmark? They threatened to leave the sponsors group when things didn't go their way, a few years back.

      They have PhysX in 3Dmark, when no one else has it in hardware to artificially boost benchmark scores (which basically sells hardware to 99% of non-enthusiasts).

      Remember when 3Dmark ran on rails? The biggest cheat that the public found out about....

      They have a very long history of dirty tricks, anti-competitive and anti-consumer behavior. The latest one is the disabling of physx when not paired with an $vidia card as the renderer. The customers already bought the right to use physx with their ati cards but $vidia disabled it and then gave a complete bull$hit answer as to why.

      That and lots more over the years.

      They are a scum company, which is why i have been $vidia-free for 7 years.

      --
      Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
    4. Re:Still has a lead on nVidia by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Inte£/Micro$oft
      $vidia

      Way to nuke any possibility of credibility, dude. Using currency symbols in company names just makes you look like a nutjob, regardless of how accurate your accusations might be. Nevermind that company of nVidia's, Intel's, Microsoft's, or indeed even ATI/AMD's size has "a very long history of dirty tricks, anti-competitive and anti-consumer behavior". Pick the card that works the best for your needs. Giving the name on the box more press -- even bad press -- simply makes the brand name that much more valuable than the hardware you're buying.

      --
      The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
    5. Re:Still has a lead on nVidia by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      nVidia manages to stay in my systems on the assumption that it will work better in Linux. So far, I have never been wrong about this; ATI has always been an abject nightmare for me, while nVidia has usually worked. Note that I am not the fanboy who will say it "just works" which would be a lie. But, it can be made to work. I've been flip-flopping between ATI and nVidia and back in the day had 3dfx and even Permedia and PowerVR at times and I've spent most of my time with nVidia and never regretted it. I've regretted every moment I spent with ATI, most especially on Linux. I've heard that some people with just the right-generation GPU have great results with the free ati driver; everyone else suffers.

      I don't care if I'm off by five or ten FPS, I care that output is pretty and that I can use my video card.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:Still has a lead on nVidia by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      They always manage to stay on top because they are a monopolist in the gfx industry

      Market share numbers from Q2 2009:

      • Intel: 51.20%
      • nVidia: 29.2%
      • AMD: 18.14%

      Sure, nVidia is an evil monopolist, what with having a market share slightly more than half of the company with the majority market share and a third larger than their nearest competitor.

      I know it's fashionable to call everyone a monopolist on Slashdot, but the term has real meanings in both law and economics. Neither definition can apply to a company that has both a market share under 50% and a competitor with a larger market share.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    7. Re:Still has a lead on nVidia by petermgreen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It really depends how you define the market. Yes intel makes a lot of motherboard chipsets and most of those come with integrated graphics with 3D capability that ranges from appalling to mediocre.

      If you define the market as all GPUs sold even those that are used in machines that never need 3D acceleration or those that are there because they are part of the chipset but are disabled by a better card (which is what I suspect your stats do) then it doesn't at all surprise me that intel comes out on top.

      OTOH if you define the market as GPUs sold for use on seperate cards (that is GPUs that customers buy willingly because they want more than their onboard graphics offers) then afaict ATI and nVidia are the only real players left.

      P.S. this post does not take any position postive or negative on whether nVidia is an evil monopolist, just that I don't think it's reasonable to count crappy integrated graphics and chips for gaming cards as the same market.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  5. Bad Financial News for AMD by physburn · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Just as AMD started turning back into profit, and gained the graphics card they had to run out of chip production. Its a pity really the're using TMC, I believe global foundaries can do 40nm standard silicon either now or soon, so AMD should perphaps switch to there part owned foundary. Hope AMD sort out the problem soon, i'd hate to be on a one cpu maker planet.

    ---

    Graphics Cards Feed @ Feed Distiller

    1. Re:Bad Financial News for AMD by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I believe global foundaries can do 40nm standard silicon either now or soon, so AMD should perphaps switch to there part owned foundary.

      No, they can't. Global Foundries can do 45nm, and soon 32nm, but not 40. Also, Global Foundries uses SOI while TSMC is bulk.

      I'm sure AMD will use GF eventually for their graphics chips, but for right now, I'm also sure it will take less time for TSMC to sort themselves out than it would to modify the design for a very different process.

      Also, don't expect graphics by itself to make or break AMD. It helps being on top their, but it's a small portion of their overall revenue. To stay afloat, AMD has to compete with Intel and that's all there is to it.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:Bad Financial News for AMD by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      They'll probably fix it soon. One of the reasons for spinning off The Foundry Companies was to make it easier for AMD to use other foundries for production. I'd imagine that their next chips will be sent to two or more foundries with penalty clauses in the contract if they can't keep up with demand and bonuses if the others can take up the slack when one can't keep up.

      i'd hate to be on a one cpu maker planet

      You mean one x86 CPU manufacturer. TI, Samsung, Qualcomm, and a dozen other companies all make ARM chips and these outsell x86 by a large margin.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    3. Re:Bad Financial News for AMD by evilviper · · Score: 2, Funny

      You mean one x86 CPU manufacturer. TI, Samsung, Qualcomm, and a dozen other companies all make ARM chips and these outsell x86 by a large margin.

      Frito Lay chips outsell ARM chips by a large margin...

      Of course they're vastly different things, and not remotely comparable, but you don't seem to care about that in the slightest...

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  6. Oh man, and they got TSMC in on it! by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I were TSMC I'd be pretty pissed.

    I'd be pretty pissed too that I was having material issues with my 40nm process that was affecting my customers in a significant way.

    Oh but wait I'm sure it was AMD's executives that somehow made TSMC admit that they have still-unresolved problems even though they really don't.

    How about take a good hard look at your company that's losing money out the ass and fire and all the moronic windbags in upper management who are too busy cutting insider trading deals to actually instill some fucking leadership in the company.

    I hear ya there! I laughed my ass off when Hector the Sector Wrecker (as Motorola/Freescale folks call him) got fingered in the insider trading scandal. Maybe he'll be cooling his heels and get more comeuppance than he ever could just by being fired with a golden parachute. Oh well he already wasn't the CEO.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  7. Re:Price hikes? by XanC · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not saying there won't be assholes selling 5870s for $800 on eBay

    How does that make them assholes?

  8. This is why AMD/Foundry needs more fabs by Targon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    AMD has needed new fabs to increase capacity for a long time now. After AMD purchased ATI, I always found it odd that there wasn't more of a push to build more fabs and bring their GPU production in-house. At the least, NVIDIA should also be suffering from TSMC having problems, even though they may not be feeling the crunch at the moment.

  9. In Slashdot speak by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Funny

    Monopolist = Company I don't like that sells more hardware/software than company I do like.