• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

*** 5800 Series Update ***

Its Charlie.

IT LOOKS LIKE the wait for more Cypress/HD58xx cards just got a little longer, but not by much. One has to wonder how TSMC can be so bad for so long.

The short story is that the flow of Cypress chips was supposed to uncork on Dec 1, +/- a week or so. ATI just updated AIBs that it is now another week or two on top of that. Instead of Dec 1, think Dec 15. Not the end of the world, but it is still annoying.

The blame has to be laid squarely on the feet of TSMC, yields going from good to awful without any changes to the chip are not a design problem, they are a process problem. How TSMC could backslide like that is beyond me.

Officially, the problem is a 'chamber mismatch'. This is where a tool, likely a plasma etch chamber, is out of calibration. Basically, if you set it to 5, it works like a 3 or a 7, it is 'off'. This can happen for a number of reasons, but semiconductor process engineers spoken to by SemiAccurate say that this is a bring up error, it doesn't just happen in the middle of a run.

It looks like this happened at TSMC, and not only that, but it went undetected for weeks or months. Given the number of chips affected, or more to the point, the number of chips that were supposed to come out but didn't, it was undetected for a long long time.

If this 'mismatch' happened early in the chip making process, then you might think it was plausible that the problem wasn't detected until the dead chips came off the line. This isn't likely given the cost of bad parts, chipmakers check and double check the results of tools with stunning regularity. In the industry parlance, the term for this is called metrology.

So, what happened is that TSMC claims that they essentially had a chamber mis-calibrated. Unlikely, but fair enough. In the industry parlance, this is called '**** happens'. For TSMC's metrology checks not to catch this for a month or more however is not acceptable, it should have been at most a day, and then a little longer to figure out why it happened, and maybe a few days to get the darn thing re-calibrated.

For TSMC to screw up this badly for this long is not an understandable problem. It goes beyond error, and falls well into that nebulous zone where too many things went wrong for them to all be chance. You have a bring up error, a sudden tool miscalibration, and then two plus months of no one noticing something that should have set off alarm bells in an hour or two. This should have been tested for and caught within a wafer batch or two.

TSMC has been making a mess of things lately, but they do have a 40nm semiconductor process that mostly works. This makes them one of the few places in the world that has that high a level of technology. They didn't get there by chance, it took work, engineering, and attention to detail.

With that in mind, the sheer incompetence of this error, coupled with the sheer incompetence of the metrology, makes you wonder if it was actually by chance. From there, things get really odd.S|A
Click to expand...

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/11/16/ati-58xx-parts-delayed-bit-more/
 
Just hope my exam results dont suffer now. I sold my 8800gtx to stop me playing games before my A levels. Now i've bought this before my january exams at uni...
 
Ok i'm getting really dispondant now :(

Placed my order for a new complete rig on the 15th October, along with a 5850. I've changed the order so many times, and have made it quite clear I didn't mind which make of 5850 i get. Was told the VTX was the next card in so was changed to that, and now hear that others have been getting their cards through on the Sapphire's!

Whilst i'm made up for you guys for getting your long awaited cards, i'm just feeling a bit left out here.

Fatboy are you able to assist me please? Order No : 3466805

Cheers.
 
SiWoolley said:
Whilst i'm made up for you guys for getting your long awaited cards, i'm just feeling a bit left out here.
Click to expand...

I know exactly how you feel :( placed my order 2 weeks ago and already feeling annoyed, no idea how you've coped for a month. Supply is supposed to pick up in the next 2-3 weeks. Fingers crossed it happens a bit sooner.
 
SiWoolley said:
Ok i'm getting really dispondant now :(

Placed my order for a new complete rig on the 15th October, along with a 5850. I've changed the order so many times, and have made it quite clear I didn't mind which make of 5850 i get. Was told the VTX was the next card in so was changed to that, and now hear that others have been getting their cards through on the Sapphire's!

Whilst i'm made up for you guys for getting your long awaited cards, i'm just feeling a bit left out here.

Fatboy are you able to assist me please? Order No : 3466805

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Your card is actually in stock and ready to ship. It's the other three Items on your order that is holding it up
 
I have confirmation of a large volume of Sapphire 5850 leaving Hong kong today they will cover all back orders with plenty to spare. Realistically they will be here on Monday.

No news on anything 5870 I am afraid.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom