I wonder how the ATI contingent will cope with this news after the criticism they so enjoyed giving NVidia in the "GT300 sub-30% yields" thread.
Given that AMD are currently in the habit of releasing low cost graphics cards and processors I wonder if they'll be tempted to hit RV870 with the nerf bat in order to bring yields into line and get an earlier release...?
what? yields are down to TSMC, because its a TSMC plant run by them. How would giving the rv870 a nerfbat increase the yields, its a tiny, core, Nvidia's is looking to be over twice the size, if either core needed reducing to increase yields, its VERY obvious which one that is. Say, i dunno a billion transistors across the waifer are dud's, and they will probably be in small clusters, the smaller the cores the less transistors are wasted around any cores affected by non working clusters of transistors. IE big huge cores means twice as much waste on each core effected. While AMD are making smaller cores theres an incredibly small chance they'd end up with lower yields than a bigger core, made by AMD, Intel, or Nvidia, thats just the way it works. Theres a chance both will have similar yields but in all likelyhood the smaller cores will have bigger yields than a larger core, across multiple waifers the trend will almost always be higher yields on a smaller core.
Likewise, these are unconfirmed reports, quite possible because, well, TSMC have screwed up everything they've done for almost 3 years now, but still unconfirmed.
Yields are yields are yields, it means SOME are working. They can still launch even if it means 20k cards instead of 100k cards, thats how life works.
Infact considering Win 7's launch date it would work in their favour doing a limited release rather than nothing at all.
Global foundries getting up and running for 3rd party contracts can't happen soon enough for anyone, increase competition means lower prices for everyone, and TSMC having to get off their asses and doing something about crappy new process's. Since GloFo's annoucements TSMC has already massively increased R&D funds, but that won't really come about in results right now but for the next process(or even the one after it). Right now they've been spending as little as possible to keep going because screw ups or not, Nvidia/Ati have no where else to go.
