TSMC Fab 14: Wrong chemical usage renders thousands of wafers unusable for NVIDIA (and others)

Fox2232

2019-01-29 20:49

Aura89:

I apparently misread the post, and didn't even see the ten thousand listed, which is pretty sad, i read it multiple times. My bad lol though a 2017 article shows that a 6-inch wafer costs around $125, and a 1-inch costs around $21, so if we assume a 12-inch cost double that of a 6-inch, that'd be a 2.5 million dollar mistake. Surely not a huge dent into TSMCs overall situation though. https://virginiasemi.wordpress.com/2017/08/20/how-much-does-a-silicon-wafer-cost/

I do not think that doubling radius doubles price. As it quadruples area. (pricing discussion is on previous page) But surely, It is not big stain on larger picture. On professional level for responsible people...

#5633145

Agonist

2019-01-29 20:54

Silva:

Whatever your point of view is, this sucks big time. The people responsible are in big trouble. Imagine you're building a car and at your station you forget to plug in the airbags? I just hope they can resume production soon.

I worked at the nissan plant on the altima line in 2008, when the car is 'done' and rolled off the line, they are inspected for visual defects and all systems checked before they leave the building for transport.

#5633175

yasamoka

2019-01-29 21:53

Fox2232:

I am sorry. But this is exactly why You are one who should come and provide any remotely meaningful evidence before you dare to write post like this. And I am not sorry to say that exactly this response is expected from you. There are people I argue with. There are people I disagree with. And then there are people who always have more hate at store. (The ones I have no respect for.) = = = = Now, let's say that generic value I provided is not accurate. Let's say that 12~16 wafers goes for $1500 or $6000. And let's say that I absolutely wrote wrong number... Is the number reason to write such text as you did? Then read it after yourself and in right mind press "post reply"? We know each other's posting style quite well. After all the experience, don't ever expect that I'll consider you as non-hostile.

Great, so you have no evidence. That's all I wanted to know. I'm only hostile when your fact synthesis is involved.

#5633180

Fox2232

2019-01-29 22:09

yasamoka:

Great, so you have no evidence. That's all I wanted to know. I'm only hostile when your fact synthesis is involved.

How does that work? Isn't "fact synthesis" just another state of dogmatism? I wish you could live for a while without universal hostility.

#5633202

Aura89

2019-01-30 00:36

Fox2232:

I do not think that doubling radius doubles price. As it quadruples area. (pricing discussion is on previous page) But surely, It is not big stain on larger picture. On professional level for responsible people...

I only used double since 1 inch to 6 inch seemed to have added 6ish times the cost, i can't find any "recent" information of 12 inch, sadly.

#5633205

AMDfan

2019-01-30 00:45

Can't say i feel bad for NVIDIA, i hope AMD 7nm will have no problems. As it looks now there are no such problems with 7nm. AMD better hurry with launching Navi, they may catch up with NVIDIA a bit more.

Alex13:

Cant wait for the (even further) artificially inflated pricing on RTX, now instead of paying double what you should, you'll have to pay triple! RTX inflate ON Nvidia soon to accept direct kidney payments, who needs a middleman anyway.

+ you get maybe again a faulty GPU that must be RMAed...

#5633207

vbetts

Moderator

2019-01-30 00:48

Fox2232:

How does that work? Isn't "fact synthesis" just another state of dogmatism? I wish you could live for a while without universal hostility.

I wish you two would stop.

#5633267

fantaskarsef

2019-01-30 07:35

Margalus:

It's amazing how many people here are blaming NVidia for something that happened at a completely different company..

Amaze:

It's like cheering for disaster at TSMC, I don't get it.

I don't think people are cheering here. It more like this, people don't care about the suppliers issues, since already salty because even if they were fabbing without any interruptions, they'd still do products people don't really fancy. So, kind of a different motivation than you thought I guess.

#5633270

anticupidon

2019-01-30 07:42

fantaskarsef:

I call BS. All in all it sounds like a warning that prices may hike again, although clearly, since either the raw materials were botched (which is the suppliers issue), or they were used and not checked beforehand (TSMC's issue), both should compensate for not delivered chips under any circumstance. The rest is just marketing to "justify" something else that will come soon.

Same opinion here, and the timing is weird. Don't forget tough, that we need competition, as customers, just to get the best from all companies who compete to offer best ech at best price/performance ratio.

#5633455

Solfaur

2019-01-30 18:55

When it rains, it pours... 😳

#5633541

anticupidon

2019-01-30 22:11

It saddens me to find that the failure/losses are sometimes pushed into customers pockets, we have to pay much more for whatever reasons: floods, wrong chemicals, drivers who burns video cards...to name a few.

#5633543

0blivious

2019-01-30 22:18

Sure are a lot of people that instantly jump to conspiracies. Nvidia makes it's own mess perfectly fine without blaming them for some other factory's ineptitude.

#5633549

sykozis

2019-01-30 22:31

0blivious:

Sure are a lot of people that instantly jump to conspiracies. Nvidia makes it's own mess perfectly fine without blaming them for some other factory's ineptitude.

Never thought I'd see such a statement about NVidia on this forum.... That's blasphemous.... NVidia never makes mistakes. Just ask the NVidia loyalists..... Ok, sarcasm out of the way.... I doubt this will affect prices of the RTX2070, 2080 or 2080Ti much as NVidia already seems to be having difficulty selling them. The RTX2060 and rumored GTX1660/1660Ti on the other hand, may see price increases as a result as they're the cards most likely to sell in high volumes. Being that the issue was caused by TSMC, NVidia would have a hard time justifying price increases without admitting that it's simply due to pure greed. As I'm waiting for the rumored GTX1660Ti to drop, a price increase on the RTX2060 would be a bad sign....

#5633738

pegasus1

2019-01-31 13:12

fantaskarsef:

I'm curious, who was that? Might have been the smartest GPU buy in the last years... for me it is. Way better than 980 SLI before... 😳

A couple on here and various other (gaming forums) up there with the 8800GTX as my best buys.

#5633757

fantaskarsef

2019-01-31 14:20

pegasus1:

A couple on here and various other (gaming forums) up there with the 8800GTX as my best buys.

That I do believe, but I can't claim otherwise since I didn't have a 8800GTX at that time. iirc I was running AMD at that time.