TSMC's R&D boss addresses 40-nm yields, high-k, litho

[Olivon]

EETimes - TSMC's R&D boss addresses 40-nm yields, high-k, litho

Interesting interview especially with 28 nm transition. Time will tell us as usual ...

Thanks to DVHardware

[saaya]

very interesting, cheers!

only 80.000 12" 40nm wafers per month right now?
thats not a lot, is it?

[Luka_Aveiro]

very interesting, cheers!

only 80.000 12" 40nm wafers per month right now?
thats not a lot, is it?

That's quite a lot, actually, considering the 40nm issues we all know about from ATI and nVidia's products...

[Iconyu]

very interesting, cheers!

only 80.000 12" 40nm wafers per month right now?
thats not a lot, is it?

It's not 80,000 a month it's 80,000 a quarter, they are hoping to get to 160,000 a quarter soon.

[Buckeye]

very interesting, cheers!

only 80.000 12" 40nm wafers per month right now?
thats not a lot, is it?

Isnt that per quarter ?

[zerazax]

80,000 per month would have been a lot, but for a quarter... not so much

[AffenJack]

very interesting, cheers!

only 80.000 12" 40nm wafers per month right now?
thats not a lot, is it?

80k a month would be much. 80k a quarter is ok. GFs production capacity in Dresden is also only 50-60k Wafer per Month i think. And at the Moment only one Fab is producing there the AMD CPUs.

[570091D]

It's not 80,000 a month it's 80,000 a quarter, they are hoping to get to 160,000 a quarter soon.

we are able to do about 80,000 wafers per quarter at the moment. These are twelve-inch wafers. And this will be doubled by the end of this year

i don't think "by the end of this year" is really that soon... how will they be able to keep up with demand for both amd and nvidia gpu's? how has amd been able to ship "over 1 million" dx11 cards if production is so low?

EDIT: i'm guessing the 1.9 million euro "clamp" is actually a crane or hoist?

[AffenJack]

What is the problem with shipping over 1million chips?
1million chips is even with middle yields with cypress just 10000 Wafer. That's 2500 Wafer per month in 2009 for the production time of Cypress.

[god_43]

i don't think "by the end of this year" is really that soon... how will they be able to keep up with demand for both amd and nvidia gpu's? how has amd been able to ship "over 1 million" dx11 cards if production is so low?

EDIT: i'm guessing the 1.9 million euro "clamp" is actually a crane or hoist?

probably design issues with fermi i take it?

[trinibwoy]

i don't think "by the end of this year" is really that soon... how will they be able to keep up with demand for both amd and nvidia gpu's? how has amd been able to ship "over 1 million" dx11 cards if production is so low?

They've been complaining about not getting enough 40nm GT2xx chips as well so the problem isn't just Fermi, it seems to be overall 40nm capacity. I wonder how those are yielding at this point.

[saaya]

oh my bad, 80.000 per quarter... then thats 20.000 per month?
nvidia can get a max of 100 fermis per wafer, right?
so with 100% yield they could get 200.000 fermis per month

then why do they complain about tsmcs capacity?
even with 10% yield they could still get 20.000 fermis per month...
and lets say they can only use 30% of tsmcs capcity (which is rather pessimistic considering nvidia is historically tsmcs biggest customer AND only get 10% yields... then thats still 7000 fermis per month...
so a 1 month preparation should be enough to launch fermi with good availability... at least from tsmcs standpoint... right?

[Mechanical Man]

7000 chips good availability? dont think so.

[trinibwoy]

oh my bad, 80.000 per quarter... then thats 20.000 per month?

A quarter is 3 months.

then why do they complain about tsmcs capacity?

That capacity is for all customers and all chips, not just GF100. And yes, 7000 GF100's a month would be a complete joke.

[Piotrsama]

oh my bad, 80.000 per quarter... then thats 20.000 per month?
nvidia can get a max of 100 fermis per wafer, right?
so with 100% yield they could get 200.000 fermis per month

Those 20.000 wafers are for all their 40 nm customers, we don't know what's nvidia's slice of that.

[saaya]

7000 chips good availability? dont think so.

the gtx280 launched with less than that, much less...

A quarter is 3 months.

doh
yeah, so thats 25.000 wafers per month then...

That capacity is for all customers and all chips, not just GF100. And yes, 7000 GF100's a month would be a complete joke.

how so? ati sold 1 million rv870 and rv840 chips in about 3 months, thats 333.000 per month... im pretty sure 5870s were only around 30.000-100.000 per month...

25.000 wafers per month
worst case, nvidia gets only 8000 of those
worst case, fermi yields are 10% so they can get only 80.000 fermis per month if they use all their capacity for fermi

best case, nvidia gets 15.000 of the wafers
best case, fermi yields are 30% (which is very good for a huge chip)
so nvidia can produce 450.000 fermis per month if they use all their capacity for fermi.

i find it hard to believe that nvidia is limited by tsmcs capacity...

[trinibwoy]

how so? ati sold 1 million rv870 and rv840 chips in about 3 months, thats 333.000 per month... im pretty sure 5870s were only around 30.000-100.000 per month...

Do you think they were all manufactured in those three months?

if they use all their capacity for fermi

They won't. They have other much higher volume products on 40nm to worry about.

[Andrew LB]

i don't think "by the end of this year" is really that soon... how will they be able to keep up with demand for both amd and nvidia gpu's?

If TSMC is not able to fulfill orders for both ATi and nVidia, they will have to produce chips for the company they have a more solid contract with. My bet would be on nVidia since they have far more market share and are a much larger source of income for TSMC.

how has amd been able to ship "over 1 million" dx11 cards if production is so low?

TSMC has been producting .40nm chips for ATi months before consumers were able to purchase them... and much of those 1 million chips were manufactured before December while yields were very low. This is why I've always maintained the opinion that ATi jumped the gun just to get the crown for a while but forgot to remember that without profits, they wont be able to pay off all the R&D they're spending on very fast product cycles.

[Andrew LB]

They won't. They have other much higher volume products on 40nm to worry about.

nVidia has almost 3x the market share of ATi. A 'low volume' card for nVidia is probably quite similar in units produced as a 'high volume' card from ATi.

Plus I have a feeling TSMC makes more profit from larger accounts like nVidia.

[annihilat0r]

.........
best case, nvidia gets 15.000 of the wafers
best case, fermi yields are 30% (which is very good for a huge chip)
so nvidia can produce 450.000 fermis per month if they use all their capacity for fermi.

i find it hard to believe that nvidia is limited by tsmcs capacity...

What makes you think Nvidia is trying to produce as many GF100's as it can? I think the limited availability of GF100 won't be because of TSMC's capacity issues. It's because of the yield issues, and even then it's not because there are not enough chips. It's because yields are bad, Nvidia cannot make a profit, so they will try to minimize their loss by producing a very little amount of chips.

My guess is that they are going to sell those chips at a good price and then make the customers wait for the yields to go up and the chip to be actually profitable for them to mass produce, at which stage they will.

Just a guess, sure, but it makes sense

[saaya]

Do you think they were all manufactured in those three months?

most of them... yes... they reported that they broke the 2million mark in january, that was only a few weeks after they broke the 1 million mark...

They won't. They have other much higher volume products on 40nm to worry about.

thats probably true...
i still find it hard to believe that they are capacity limited...

nVidia has almost 3x the market share of ATi. A 'low volume' card for nVidia is probably quite similar in units produced as a 'high volume' card from ATi.

Plus I have a feeling TSMC makes more profit from larger accounts like nVidia.

3x the market share? where did you get that number from?

What makes you think Nvidia is trying to produce as many GF100's as it can? I think the limited availability of GF100 won't be because of TSMC's capacity issues. It's because of the yield issues, and even then it's not because there are not enough chips. It's because yields are bad, Nvidia cannot make a profit, so they will try to minimize their loss by producing a very little amount of chips.

My guess is that they are going to sell those chips at a good price and then make the customers wait for the yields to go up and the chip to be actually profitable for them to mass produce, at which stage they will.

Just a guess, sure, but it makes sense

yes, thats what i think as well... i was just saying, hypothetically, lets say nvidia is really capacity limited and they try to produce as much dx11 but they cant, because tsmc just cant get enough wafers processed...

to me, that sounds like they blaming tsmc... once again...
and they probably told their investors and analysts that of course fermi is finished working perfectly fine, and yields are fine, they COULD have launched it at any time but simply decided its better to wait until tsmc has better yields and solved their "capacity issues"

and most analysts and investors will probably even believe that... and tsmc being a typical asian suckup happily bends over and apologizes and claims its all their fault... while ati is shipping hundreds of thousands of 40nm parts every month for over a quarter...

[Nedjo]

This is VERY useful interview, that can clarify some things!

You all heard about TSMC is challenge during the early part of last year. I report to you we are glad all this problems was behind us. We resolve this yield problem in the second half of last year. So we're glad the yield issue was over, and we are building the capacity very aggressively to fulfill the very high demand from our customers.

So yield problems with Fermi are not related to TSMC's process, but to the design of the Fermi?!

The first high-k metal gate we call 28 HP for the high performance application will be introduce the end of September this year, and followed by three months later December will be the 28 HPL. This is the first high-k metal gate introduction for the low power application.

So there'll be no Fermi shrink before H1 2011 at best!?

Going forward, we plan to introduce 22 nanometer node about two years after we introduce 28 nanometer, so the first introduction we'd like to be in the Q3 of 2012, and this if for the high performance version. And followed by the low power version about the end of Q1 2013.

so the pace we'll see in GPU industry will be:

Nex gen - @ 28nm in H2 2011

NexNex gen @ 22nm in Q4 2013

And lithography side the industry seems like the mainstream trend will be to go to EUV and you may or may not have heard about the cost of EUV. If you buy one EUV tool with a matched track, it will cost like 80 million dollars for just one tool. I was shocked to sign a P.O. only couple weeks ago shortly before my vacation. I signed a 1.9 million euro purchase order for a clamp.

This clamp is a custom made clamp only for EUV. We have to mount a special clamp on the ceiling and this clamp will be used to lift the EUV tool when we install the machine, and when we do the maintenance. This tool is so heavy, no other tool can lift it up, and this custom-made clamp costs us 1.9 million euros, just to buy a clamp. It's really shocking.

in 2015 there'll be ONLY 4 semi companies in the plane Earth:

Intel
GloFo
TSMC
Samsung

[qcmadness]

If TSMC is not able to fulfill orders for both ATi and nVidia, they will have to produce chips for the company they have a more solid contract with. My bet would be on nVidia since they have far more market share and are a much larger source of income for TSMC.



TSMC has been producting .40nm chips for ATi months before consumers were able to purchase them... and much of those 1 million chips were manufactured before December while yields were very low. This is why I've always maintained the opinion that ATi jumped the gun just to get the crown for a while but forgot to remember that without profits, they wont be able to pay off all the R&D they're spending on very fast product cycles.

"Traditionally" TSMC befriends with ATi more because ATi is more willing to test on new process. But now AMD is tied to GF for future manufacturing.

[Nedjo]

" But now AMD is tied to GF for future manufacturing.

that actually isn't true.
in many occasions AMD executives confirmed that they're staying in business with TSMC, just as they've done it so far.

[qcmadness]

that actually isn't true.
in many occasions AMD executives confirmed that they're staying in business with TSMC, just as they've done it so far.

But the agreement between AMD and ATIC states that after 32nm / 28nm transition, AMD will go for GF and eventually hires GF to manufacture ALL AMD CPUs and GPUs.

http://ccbn.10kwizard.com/xml/downlo...915755&sXBRL=1

Page 7

Wafer Supply Agreement. The Wafer Supply Agreement governs the terms by which we purchase products manufactured by GF. Pursuant to the Wafer Supply Agreement, we purchase, subject to limited exceptions, all of our microprocessor unit (MPU) product requirements from GF. If we acquire a third-party business that manufactures MPU products, we will have up to two years to transition the manufacture of such MPU products to GF. In addition, once GF establishes a 32nm-qualified process, we will purchase from GF, where competitive, specified percentages of our graphics processor unit (GPU) requirements at all process nodes, which percentages will increase linearly over a five-year period. At our request, GF will also provide sort services to us on a product-by-product basis.