Nvidia has serious yield problems with the GT200.

[ownage]

Well, that was what I said..

FYI, a 40% failure rate out of 94 gives 56 dies left for sale..not 37

Ah well, splitting hairs here...

Sorry. I was talking about the costs of the failed dies not the ones for sale.

Yeild has more to do with process than design.

Of course but design is also important. Alexio explained this to me last week.
G70 was identical to G71 but G71 had less transistors. G70 had lots of back-up transistors so if important transistors would fail, the process would be taken over by the backup transistor. G71 had less backup transistors because they where familiar with the technique and expected good yields.
If GT200 is already big, and they don't want more they use less backup transistors.
Produce large dies is not easy but if a core doesn't have much backup transistors you experience more failed dies. If a core has failed transistors, but the tasks can be taken over by the backup transistor then the core still works.