Bloomberg on PS5 yields, orders, and price ranges [2020-09-14]

[mpg1]

PS5 SOC with 50% yield will cost 2 times than the same SOC with 100% yield.


In fact I am wondering if the yield is right because Bloomberg still predicts PS5 can target $449.

The yield info is more fundamental than Bloomberg's prediction on price.

 

[AlNom]

How is "Cerny lies about clocks" a useful discussion to justify lower than anticipated yields?
What is the connection here, in your opinion?

I might have missed the post about that specifically? Who said he was lying?

Again, feel free to move on from noisy posts that don't contribute to technical discussion that we'd prefer here.

 

[iroboto]

I might have missed the post about that specifically? Who said he was lying?

Again, feel free to move on from noisy posts that don't contribute to technical discussion that we'd prefer here.

I had to go back as well. We woke up to 100 messages. We skimmed through them and didn't live through them one at a time.
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2155564/

 

[Shortbread]

Would that even change anything? Simply put, if they're already targetting power envelops (roughly), so more CUs means eating more power means lower clocks?

Yes. I was just spitballing a crazy tinfoil hat theory...

 

[AlNom]

I had to go back as well. We woke up to 100 messages. We skimmed through them and didn't live through them one at a time.
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2155564/

A bit of a...

(>• •)>⌐■-■

...hot... take.
(⌐■-■)


-----

TBH, I'm not even sure what to think of the comment. It's a bit of a leap. *shrug*

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

PS5 SOC with 50% yield will cost 2 times than the same SOC with 100% yield.


In fact I am wondering if the yield is right because Bloomberg still predicts PS5 can target $449.

I thought article states 449$ is best case scenario.

 

[AlNom]

This is interesting, the IO die is much big than GPU + CPU.

Do note that everything is within the "Main Custom Chip" - singular. The three boxes are just to show the blocks that make up the SOC.

 

[Ika]

Who knows. I think Sony's decisions surrounding their GPU design is quite questionable. IMHO, I would have forgone BC in favor of more raw GPU compute.

As far as we know, PS4pro BC is done by having backward compatible hardware. I think it is more pausible that previous gen game engines would behave more predictable and/or would need less modification on the new hardware if having 36 PS5 CUs running in BC mode compared to 40 CUs doing the same (imho).


ps.: it is only a specualtion ofc, but it would be also pausible that Sony will do a PS5 pro with 72CUs one day.

 

[AlNom]

yea I think some others have mentioned this, but with respect to this article, Bloomberg Japan is citing that the SoC is the one having yield issues. The article cites a 50% yield on SoC.
That's pretty bad. That's like big bulky expensive Intel CPU chips bad, definitely not the type of yield I expect for a game console.

So if we do some napkin math so that people can ground some discussion of what things could be in terms of pricing/BOM etc.

IIRC another member here cited 11K for a 300mm 7nm wafer.
So area = pi * 150^2
XSX is 360mm^2 == 196 chips per wafer
PS5 is 300mm^2 == 235 chips per wafer
XSS is 197mm^2 == 358 chips per wafer

If you multiply out yields, and lets say a low yield is 80%
196 (XSX) * 0.8 = 157 chips or 70 USD per chip
235 (PS5) * 0.5 = 117 chips or 93 USD per chip
358(XSS) * 0.8 = 287 chips or 38 USD per chip

So it's not double the cost just because it's 50% yield. But we can see how XSS got to 299 and we have an idea now that PS5 could potentially hover around XSX pricing as a result of that BOM increase.

But final price to the customers is really just about, whatever they want to price it at.

I know it's just illustrative, but I'd have guessed lower yield than 80% for SX. It's a thicc chip. I think there were early rumours that its clock speed actually increased to what it is now, but I digress.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

The article cites a 50% yield on SoC.

Nope. What the article says it's that they were a bad as 50% but have been improving. Your math could be way off.

But the company has come up against manufacturing issues, such as production yields as low as 50% for its SOC, which have cut into its ability to produce as many consoles as it wishes, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the deliberations aren’t public. Yields have been gradually improving but have yet to reach a stable level, they added.

In any case, at the prices that are being speculated, they are going to take a huge hit on profitability at least until they got the manufacturing process matured.

 

[iroboto]

I know it's just illustrative, but I'd have guessed lower yield than 80% for SX. It's a thicc chip. I think there were early rumours that its clock speed actually increased to what it is now, but I digress.

according to this article Zen 8 core processors in 2019 were at 70% yield:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/zen-2-ryzen-3000-cpu-yield-70-percent

judging by the 5700, the yields seems pretty good. Things should have improved since then now that we are deep into 2020.

So I went with low yields at 80% which seems appropriate for a console.

 

[AlNom]

according to this article Zen 8 core processors in 2019 were at 70% yield:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/zen-2-ryzen-3000-cpu-yield-70-percent

judging by the 5700, the yields seems pretty good. Things should have improved since then now that we are deep into 2020.

So I went with low yields at 80% which seems appropriate for a console.

Tbf, wouldn't those yields include all the binned parts? It may not be so rosy when looking at specific configurations. Things get more complicated when combining the two and then some.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

Tbf, wouldn't those yields include all the binned parts? It may not be so rosy when looking at specific configurations. Things get more complicated when combining the two and then some.

That would be in line with the Xbox presentation at Hot Chips.


Probably lower than the 80% mentioned.

 

[AlNom]

It'd be nice to get the audio for that presentation. I'm not entirely clear on the context of the comparison, although I'd guess it was to Scorpio since it has the closest die size @ 16nm. If so, that's also considering that Scorpio had a fairly high clock for the time too (when RX 580 was in the range of 1257MHz).

 

[iroboto]

Nope. What the article says it's that they were a bad as 50% but have been improving. Your math could be way off.

I didn't say the yields are 50%. I tried to ground (a run away) argument in which the worst case scenario for a 50% yield what costs would look like.
As I attempt to show, the cost is not doubled as compared to expectation.

 

[BRiT]

Probably lower than the 80% mentioned.

So do you think Microsoft lowered or should lower their final clocks to improve yields? That seems to be what some are saying Sony should do to improve their yields.

 

[Shortbread]

So do you think Microsoft lowered or should lower their final clocks to improve yields? That seems to be what some are saying Sony should do to improve their yields.

I don't think so. The fanboy fallout on both sides would be tremendous (yet, entertaining to see), and gaming media-sites articles would be click-bait heaven and brutal.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

So do you think Microsoft lowered or should lower their final clocks to improve yields? That seems to be what some are saying Sony should do to improve their yields.

Why? We don't even know what their target yields are, not the expected cost per SoC.

What normal people do when developing a product is: set a series of requirements (both technical and financial), design around those requirements, come up with something close to what you want, test it, iterate on the design, test it, come with a commercial viable product, begin mass manufacturing.

When you start the manufacturing process, as with any other process really, then the cycle of continuous improvement begins unless you hit a hard limit, like cost or just technical feasibility.

Did MS stop manufacturing or change the specs because the 360 had failure rates close to 30%? No, they just improved the process/design. Which is what MS and Sony will do, as I'm sure they have quality departments fully oriented to cost reduction.

If Zen2 yield are 70% I don't believe MS was aiming for 80% to be honest. Considering how big their chip is.

edit: an article I read on the issue some time ago.

http://semiengineering.com/yield-ramp-challenges-increase/

 

[iroboto]

Why? We don't even know what their target yields are, not the expected cost per SoC.

What normal people do when developing a product is: set a series of requirements (both technical and financial), design around those requirements, come up with something close to what you want, test it, iterate on the design, test it, come with a commercial viable product, begin mass manufacturing.

When you start the manufacturing process, as with any other process really, then the cycle of continuous improvement begins unless you hit a hard limit, like cost or just technical feasibility.

Did MS stop manufacturing or change the specs because the 360 had failure rates close to 30%? No, they just improved the process/design. Which is what MS and Sony will do, as I'm sure they have quality departments fully oriented to cost reduction.

If Zen2 yield are 70% I don't believe MS was aiming for 80% to be honest. Considering how big their chip is.

edit: an article I read on the issue some time ago.

http://semiengineering.com/yield-ramp-challenges-increase/

That's a number from 2019 compared to late 2020. They would have newer process spins by now. The yield for a mass consumer device should be closer to 80 for them to reach lower price points without overdoing the subsidies required to sell the unit. MS has largely been very transparent throughout the whole process, if they leaked 299 and 499, without knowing Sony numbers, they likely have a business case where they hit target. These prices for MS have been concrete for some time now at least for them. They must have hit their yield targets, whatever they were, and managed to hold their 299 and 499 price points.

I do not know what Sony is targeting, but it doesn't matter now.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

That's a number from 2019 compared to late 2020. They would have newer process spins by now. The yield for a mass consumer device should be closer to 80 for them to reach lower price points without overdoing the subsidies required to sell the unit. MS has largely been very transparent throughout the whole process, if they leaked 299 and 499, without knowing Sony numbers, they likely have a business case where they hit target. These prices for MS have been concrete for some time now at least for them. They must have hit their yield targets, whatever they were, and managed to hold their 299 and 499 price points.

I do not know what Sony is targeting, but it doesn't matter now.

Again, 360 was sold at a substantial loss plus millions of replacements due to faulty units, MS lost quite a lot money with the console during the first couple of years. The console was pretty cheap still. Price targets can say or cannot say anything about the manufacturing situation.