I wonder what Sony's strategy is with its disabling certain hardware components within the PS3 in order to improve yields. Is it possible that Sony never sent out a single unit with a malfunctioning SPE and that it could be turned on at a later date through a firmware update. Also, I remember hearing Sony claim that all components were built with redundancy... I imagine this includes RSX which some have mentioned seemed to have a larger die size than the 7800GTX that it is based on. Could the RSX have 28 pixel shaders with 4 disabled? If no deffective ones were ever shipped... could it be activated through firmware down the road?
It would make sense to me that Sony might take a wait and see strategy where they hold on to deffective units to find out how yields turn out. If yields end up near 100% percent once 2 million units ship... scrap the deffective ones and update firmware to enable disabled components. If yields fall below a certain percentage after 2 million ship... start shipping deffective parts that meet the existing spec.
thoughts?
It would make sense to me that Sony might take a wait and see strategy where they hold on to deffective units to find out how yields turn out. If yields end up near 100% percent once 2 million units ship... scrap the deffective ones and update firmware to enable disabled components. If yields fall below a certain percentage after 2 million ship... start shipping deffective parts that meet the existing spec.
thoughts?