AMD Graphics Chip Shortage Hits PC Vendors

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.

Comments

TSMC

[cheesybagel]

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...

This is where Intel rules

[haruchai]

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.

Re:This is where Intel rules

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:This is where Intel rules

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:This is where Intel rules

[Chris Burke]

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.

Re:This is where Intel rules

[tlhIngan]

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.

Re:Still has a lead on nVidia

[JoeSixpack00]

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".

Re:Still has a lead on nVidia

[KillShill]

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.

Oh man, and they got TSMC in on it!

[Chris Burke]

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.

Re:Still has a lead on nVidia

[Bacon Bits]

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.

Re:Bad Financial News for AMD

[TheRaven64]

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.

Re:Still has a lead on nVidia

[petermgreen]

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.