Disappointing yields for nVidia's GT300 chip

SemiAccurate reports that nVidia is experiencing huge production problems with their new GT300 chip. Of the 416 produced samples, only 7 were free of production errors, a disappointing yield of just 1,7%. If these rumors are true, nVidia will suffer a significant delay, these samples are meant to be tested thoroughly for possible bugs and stability issues. If the amount of 'live' samples is already that limited, it'll take much longer for a retail version to be introduced as well. It's still unknown whether acceptable yields will be reached when the chip is ready for production, something that could wipe out nVidia's profits.

Experts claim that the first samples usually sport a yield of between 20 and 50%. The low yields can be explained by the fact that nVidia has to overcome many obstacles at once. The manufacturer hasn't expermented with the 40nm process much yet. The GT300 is to receive an integrated GDDR5 memorycontroller. Though this is the first nVidia chip with the controller, AMD already has a year's worth of experience using it in its HD4800 series. Lastly, the GT300 is to become a large chip, sporting a surface of about 500 mm², which further diminishes the chance of decent yields. To add some perspective, AMD's RV870 GPU, which will be used in the HD5800 cards, has a 330mm² surface.

This makes it likely that nVidia's answer to the HD5800 series won't be released until 2010, giving competitor AMD quite some time for a headstart on DirectX 11 hardware. This also means that game developers will be programming their DirectX 11 games for AMD's architecture, an advantage that was on nVidia's side when they were the first to introduce a DirectX 10 card in 2006.

Tags: gddr5 geforce tegra directx directx11 gt300

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