[Inquirer] APM tech improves Xenon yields, Chartered to start Cell production in Q3

[Titanio]

It's The Inquirer, but some interesting info if true:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30831

And when Chartered Fab7 in Singapore completed the move to APM, the Fab experienced a very fast ramp up and yield increase, AMD spinners reckon. The move ended just in time for the second wave of orders for IBM triple-headed CPUs that power Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming consoles. The CPU had some problems at the very beginning, but today it's as solid as a rock, and manufactured using a 90 nanometre SOI process.

Xbox 360 CPU production is currently running at 5,000 wafer starts per month, while production of another console processor, IBM's Cell - is expected to come on-line in Q3, with an initial ramp of 5,000 wafer starts per month as well. Overall, Chartered could end up this year with a production of all three of the hottest CPUs out there: Opterons, PowerPC 970FX and Cell.

That kind of capacity would seem fairly significant as a supplementary to Sony and IBM's own, no? Maybe/hopefully Sony is serious about ramping aggressively.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What's 5000 wafer starts? Didn't we figure about 200 processors per wafer (can't remeber back that far!). So that would be 1 million Cell's per month (or XeCPUs) inclusive of failed chips?

 

[London Geezer]

What's 5000 wafer starts? Didn't we figure about 200 processors per wafer (can't remeber back that far!). So that would be 1 million Cell's per month (or XeCPUs) inclusive of failed chips?

That's excluding Sony's fabs and the other fabs they're using.

 

[Titanio]

What's 5000 wafer starts? Didn't we figure about 200 processors per wafer (can't remeber back that far!).

Yeah, it was something like that, I think maybe 190-ish, on a 300mm wafer.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That strikes me as a lot of processors! I wonder where they're all going? Do we think yields are quite poor? If we take XeCPU, there's got to be well over a million chips being pressed, if there's more than on fab doing this. But we aren't seeing a million consoles per month being released. Either that's about to change, or most of these chips aren't finding their way into boxes. For Cell I guess there's other consumers, and maybe Toshiba and Sony CE are taking a sizeable number for goods? But what about a million XeCPU's per month?

 

[Gubbi]

Yeah, it was something like that, I think maybe 190-ish, on a 300mm wafer.

XeCPU is less that 200 mm^2. That would give around 350 candidates per wafer. Excluding waster near the edge there'll probably be around 300 candidates per wafer.

Since they are using a mature process, yields should be >80%, so around 1.2 M per month

Cheers

 

[Titanio]

Oh, I think Shifty Geezer was referring to Cell. There was a picture of a Cell wafer from some time ago, and somebody counted there to be ~200 full dies on the wafer. Cell is a little over 230mm^2 IIRC.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, but I was asking about XeCPU too. Any chance they've really got >1 million CPUs a month for XB360s? Are we really going to see 1 million units a month on the shelves?

 

[London Geezer]

Yes, but I was asking about XeCPU too. Any chance they've really got >1 million CPUs a month for XB360s? Are we really going to see 1 million units a month on the shelves?

Well for that you'd also need 1 million XGPU's too, and 1 million of everything else.
All of a sudden Sony's "outrageous" claims that they can have 1M PS3's in the shops every month doesn't sound too outrageous...

 

[pipo]

Yes, but I was asking about XeCPU too. Any chance they've really got >1 million CPUs a month for XB360s? Are we really going to see 1 million units a month on the shelves?

Dunno, but they sure are increasing the number of commercials over here...

 

[Titanio]

I'm not so sure if they are getting 1m CPUs (an 80% yield rate seems quite high to me right now..), but a capacity of 1m CPUs a month doesn't necessarily mean 1m units per month..I guess it depends on how they schedule things. Is it continuous, or is it staggered? (I'm not suggesting an answer here, btw, I honestly don't know how this stuff is typically done! )

 

[Heinrich4]

With 221 mm^2 in cell production maybe reach something like a 220/230 processors at 300mm waffer (US$ 10000 each one?) and if can achieve a maximum 80% yields of this numbers ...maybe each cell cost nearly US$ 60.


(maybe cell start production like 40% yields)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm not so sure if they are getting 1m CPUs (an 80% yield rate seems quite high to me right now..), but a capacity of 1m CPUs a month doesn't necessarily mean 1m units per month..I guess it depends on how they schedule things. Is it continuous, or is it staggered?

In economic terms you wouldn't want to produce much of an excess of a component and have it sat around as a shortage of other components prevent it's being used. If you're limiting factor is, say, a GPU at 500,000 a month, you'd want to scale back CPU production to 500,000 a month, rather than stockpile half a million processor each month. If MS are acquiiring XeCPUs at a million a month (and it must be more than that from other suppliers, or is this new run exclusive?) they ought to be aiming for a million consoles a month. That'd be very ambitious though.

 

[Carl B]

With so many fabs on Cell production by the end of this year, I wonder if indeed Cell will start making it's way into consumer electronics sometime in the not-too-distant future. Because beyond Nagasaki and East Fishkill, going Chartered - which has never been mentioned for Cell before - just seems like it would provide over capacity in terms of PS3 alone.

But who knows, I could be wrong on that.

 

[scooby_dooby]

All of a sudden Sony's "outrageous" claims that they can have 1M PS3's in the shops every month doesn't sound too outrageous...

Send me the memo when BR drives are rollin off the presses at 1million/month.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Yes, but I was asking about XeCPU too. Any chance they've really got >1 million CPUs a month for XB360s? Are we really going to see 1 million units a month on the shelves?

According to my OXM this month, max capacity on MS 2 initial plants is 120,000 units / week. They've since brought on a 3rd up in canada.

If we assume the 3rd has the same capacity as the other two, then they should be producing about 1.5million/month once all 3 are running at full capacity.

 

[rounin]

Is the one in Canada Celestica?

 

[scooby_dooby]

yup

 

[expletive]

According to my OXM this month, max capacity on MS 2 initial plants is 120,000 units / week. They've since brought on a 3rd up in canada.

If we assume the 3rd has the same capacity as the other two, then they should be producing about 1.5million/month once all 3 are running at full capacity.

Are you sure thats 120k per and not 120k combined?

 

[scooby_dooby]

Are you sure thats 120k per and not 120k combined?

Yup. Later in the article they talk about their combined production of 240/week. They also confirm that both plants are currently at full capacity.