IBM Says It's Lucky to Get 10% to 20% Yields on Cell Processor
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - July 13, 2006 7:23 AM
An 8-core Cell procesor die
Cell processor reliability details may surprise you
As Sony's PlayStation 3 console nears its official release, more focus has turned to the technical wizardry that lays inside the actual machine. The Cell processor, developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, has gained a great deal of attention over the last year. In an interview with Electronic News however, IBM vice president of Semiconductor and Technology Services Tom Reeves says that his company is lucky if it can get 10% to 20% yields on the Cell processor.
The Cell processor is so complex that IBM even accepts chips that have only four out of the eight cores working. Not all cores end up functional says Reeves. In regards to why the yields are so low, Reeves says "[defects becomes a bigger problem the bigger the chip is. With chips that are one-by-one and silicon germanium, we can get yields of 95 percent. With a chip like the Cell processor, you’re lucky to get 10 or 20 percent. If you put logic redundancy on it, you can double that." According to Reeves, Sony will be using Cell processors whether they have all cores functional or not. Reeves says that the PlayStation 3 requires at least seven of the eight cores operational.
According to Reeves, IBM is still debating whether or not to discard the processors that have only six or less cores operational. Because of the design, the processors are still operational and can be used for various applications. IBM says that it will reserve the top chips for applications such as medical imaging and defense applications.
With Reeves' statements, it appears as though Sony will be producing PlayStation 3 consoles with different Cell processors -- some with all eight cores operational and some with just seven. Reeves however does not believe that Sony will offer different pricing for the machines and only time will tell if there will be performance differences. Reeves says however that users will not see any differences in speed. "The PlayStation 3 only uses seven of [the eight cores]. You'd have a spare."
In the interview, Reeves also talks about failure rate as there is a possibility that one of the cores in the Cell will "blow" at any given time. Reeves says that usually, testing during fabrication stages will detect whether a core or more will be problematic. Using electrical "fuses", IBM can "blow" out a core during wafer testing. When asked what would happen if a 7-core PlayStation 3 ends up losing another core during operation, Reeves stated that the user would simply send the unit back for replacement. Unfortunately, this only applies if the console is still under warranty -- if it isn't, the console is dead.
Over the last several months, speculation over the PlayStation 3's official retail costs have caused many gamers to sit up and take notice. Some analysts believe that Sony's new toy will cost too much to compete but Sony has said that the entry price will not affect the PlayStation 3's adoption. Considering the extremely low yields on the Cell processor in conjunction with extensive testing time to make sure final PlayStation 3 consoles ship with reliable processors, the high introductory pricing of the PlayStation 3 begins to show its true reasons. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) president Ken Kutaragi previously said that if the PlayStation 3 was priced at $599, it would actually be "too cheap."
Seriously, Sony is ******* themselves straight in the ass with this ****.
Master Tailor Toprem Spaztastic, level 75 Drizzlecaller of Karana. Member of Clan Ta Veren
I think its time they re-evaluated the PS3. If they looked into they could easily tell that they are going to lose more money on this thing than its going to ever bring in. They should just scrap the thing and start over, it'll prolly be cheaper on them.
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Bolbo Rogue of Twisted Legion - Fippy Darkpaw
Bolbo 89th Rogue of Test (Retired)
Trenix 85th Wizard of Test (Retired)
I agree. If word on this gets out to the mass media I can see nobody wanting to buy one unless they have money to spare. 600+ bucks on a console that is bound to fail after awhile. And if it happens to be aged long enough you have to buy a whole new one? Nu-uh. Not for me thanks. Ill stick with my old PS2
...nobody wanting to buy one unless they have money to spare.
The sad thing is I can still see the ps3 being at least partially successful, simply because legions of playstation fanbois will make their parents buy them one regardless of cost/likelyhood to fail. Heck, I know at least a few people personally that are looking forward to the ps3; if I even so much as begin to mention the many flaws and craptacular moves Sony has put on recently about it, they stop listening and continue to pursuade themselves it'll be worth it
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are going to be the next LaserDisc. Why? Because the consumer population goes in 10 to 20 year cycles. We had VHS tapes which people spent hundreds of dollars to build up a home collection. Then we had Laser Disc, which people did not want to spend another hundreds of dollars to invest in. But years later we have DVD, by then people were seeing the superior quality, the price and deciding that they are willing to spend that much to start over. Now we are at HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Now they want people to spend even more hundreds to start over, but the catch is that the thing wont even work with TVs most people own, you have to have a HD TV to take full advantage of it. 75% of the population does not own an HD TV, nor can they afford the hundreds it will take to re-establish their collection of movies/TV shows. Microsoft and Sony are so caught up in their HD/HD-DVD/BluRay fight that they forgot that they are making gaming systems and just want to one up each other. Now is the perfect time for Nintendo to just slip right in and come out on top again. I just hope they are good enough to do it.
I personally don't give a flying **** about HD, and will happily play my games and watch my movies on normal equipment. Perhaps I am lucky, but I have always been blind to these moderate increases in quality that audio and videophiles seem to cream their pants over.
Just going from a standard definition set to an HD set makes a huge difference, without HD content - moving to HD content (such as the HD cables for your Xbox or PS2, even) is even larger.
Hell, it's a noticeable jump from A/V (red, white, yellow) cables to Component for your DVD, without progressive scan - and that's an analog signal, in standard definition.
HD is a HUGE increase, and everyone notices it. It's not a small "well, I hear it, but you might not" type of thing (such as 160kbps mp3 to 192kbps)... it's more like 192kbps mp3 to FLAC.
Just going from a standard definition set to an HD set makes a huge difference, without HD content - moving to HD content (such as the HD cables for your Xbox or PS2, even) is even larger.
Hell, it's a noticeable jump from A/V (red, white, yellow) cables to Component for your DVD, without progressive scan - and that's an analog signal, in standard definition.
HD is a HUGE increase, and everyone notices it. It's not a small "well, I hear it, but you might not" type of thing (such as 160kbps mp3 to 192kbps)... it's more like 192kbps mp3 to FLAC.
I don't even currently have a HD TV, but I know quality when I see it. If people cannot see the difference b/w HD TV and the quality that HD-DVD/Blu Ray tote, they are simply blind, and I am already probably legally blind without my glasses and I can still see a huge difference.
The thing about HD-DVD though, is you ^don't^ HAVE to replace your DVD collection, as HDDVD players can read DVDs. It's basically just saying, "Okay, everything I buy from now ON I'm gonna get HD-DVD."
The thing about HD-DVD though, is you HAVE to replace your DVD collection, as HDDVD players can read DVDs. It's basically just saying, "Okay, everything I buy from now ON I'm gonna get HD-DVD."
Gah! Ok, guys you got me there. I wrote the post in under 3 minutes so I didnt completely flesh out my arguement. Youre right, you dont have to replace your collection. But you still have to spend another $300 to get a new HDTV. I just dont see it becoming HUGE or even significant in the next 5 years, unless HDTVs drop dramatically in price.
Gah! Ok, guys you got me there. I wrote the post in under 3 minutes so I didnt completely flesh out my arguement. Youre right, you dont have to replace your collection. But you still have to spend another $300 to get a new HDTV. I just dont see it becoming HUGE or even significant in the next 5 years, unless HDTVs drop dramatically in price.
$300 dollars for a HDTV? Wtf HDTV costs that little?
Anyways, for me to get a new TV it would cost several thousand to do it, because I want a fairly large screen to view my stuff on and also want to have one I can hook my PC up to. I saw a nice 62'' DLP TV I want at Best Buy, 1920x1080 resolution or something like that, would sure as hell blow the **** away my 8 year old CRT TV in the living room and own six ways to sunday as a monitor for my computer. Thing is.... it's so damn big it would need to be put in the basement bedroom we have.... after all the junk down there is cleared out.
I personally don't give a flying **** about HD, and will happily play my games and watch my movies on normal equipment. Perhaps I am lucky, but I have always been blind to these moderate increases in quality that audio and videophiles seem to cream their pants over.
If you do not see a clear and definite difference between high definition and standard definition content on TV I highly suggest you visit an opticial specialist immediatly. No joke.
$300 dollars for a HDTV? Wtf HDTV costs that little?
Anyways, for me to get a new TV it would cost several thousand to do it, because I want a fairly large screen to view my stuff on and also want to have one I can hook my PC up to. I saw a nice 62'' DLP TV I want at Best Buy, 1920x1080 resolution or something like that, would sure as hell blow the **** away my 8 year old CRT TV in the living room and own six ways to sunday as a monitor for my computer. Thing is.... it's so damn big it would need to be put in the basement bedroom we have.... after all the junk down there is cleared out.
Actually High def TV's make pretty lousy PC monitors. Especially large ones.
If you do not see a clear and definite difference between high definition and standard definition content on TV I highly suggest you visit an opticial specialist immediatly. No joke.
Seriously. I could take off my glasses, and as I said I am probably classified as legally blind now as my eyes have gotten worse in the past couple of years (hence me needing better glasses a few months ago), and I could still easily tell the difference b/w HD and normal definition.
I guess I should qualify that comment some and add a couple of caveats.
Until the very recent release of true HD tv's (1080p) most TV's nativ resolution was ~1300 x768 px. On a large screen your desktop will look liek crap at those resolutions.
Using a Media Center OS (Win XP MCE) helps as it is designed for a 10 foot experience and gives you the ability to easily use your desktop apps easier from father away.
New True HD sets with 1900 x 1080 are going to look better, but if your talking about using it to read web pages and email its going to not be optimal.
remember as your screen gets larger the pixels get bigger. looking at a 1600 x 1080 on a dell 20 inch wide screen and on a 65" plasma screen are going to look very very different.
Same goes for games. Xbox and other console games are designed to runand look good on TV's and their native resolutions ( 480, 720, 1080) and from a distance of 3-20 feet. PC games are designed to run and look good on PC resolutions well above tv resolutions and from 1-2 feet away.
if you ever get a chance to look at Oblivion on the PC side by side next to an XBox 360 you will see exactly what I mean.
On the other hand, though, monitors make great HDTVs.
At work I have a Dell widescreen that I am using VGA-out on my 360 there, and it is great. The one thing that pisses me off to no end, though, is that I can't do Picture-in-Picture w/ DVI and VGA.
FYI, if you run a 360 on a monitor, and are using a widescreen format, pick 1280x768 instead of 1280x720. The color temperature (right word?) for TV's, HDTV's, and monitors are all different. TV's are ass...seriously, HDTVs are much better, but monitors are by far the best. If you run in 1280x768, it will use the right colors so it doesn't look washed out on your monitor.
I've been tempted to get a VGA connector so that I can try out my 360 on my new widescreen monitor (21"), but I just can't ever seem to justify it when it comes down to spending the $.
Not all cores end up functional says Reeves. In regards to why the yields are so low, Reeves says "[defects becomes a bigger problem the bigger the chip is. With chips that are one-by-one and silicon germanium, we can get yields of 95 percent. With a chip like the Cell processor, you’re lucky to get 10 or 20 percent. If you put logic redundancy on it, you can double that." According to Reeves, Sony will be using Cell processors whether they have all cores functional or not. 
Reeves says that the PlayStation 3 requires at least seven of the eight cores operational.
? I saw pictures of someone on OT that had their rig set up to one playing HL2 on it and it looked gorgeous.
