Sony having Cell yield problems?

[Karma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie Demerjian, May 4th

SOURCES CLAIM that yields of the Cell microprocessor for the Playstation 3 are not good. A process mole tells us that the Cell yields are far enough below par that the amounts of good dies off the test wafers are "horrible".

The problem is that IBM and Sony designed the chip for some very aggressive process technologies that did not materialise in the way the fab boys were expecting. Because of this, we are told Sony is scrambling to get yields up before it has to make them for real, a fast approaching deadline.

Cell yields 'horrible', sources claim

[Gantua]

Is this statement saying that they're only getting a few good chips per run when they should be getting more?? Or is it about the processing power of the chip itself?? Quite vague and whoever wrote the article needs some help putting coherent thooughts down on paper.

[Karma]

The problem when you receive info from an inside source is that it's never exact in it's details. So you'd never be able to tell if it's the overall speeds they're having problems with, or working samples per wafer, or whatever.

That's my personal experience with ATi, anyway.