Fermi Still Plagues NVIDIA

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The tale of NVIDIA’s Fermi next-gen graphics processing units (GPU) has been a long, troublesome tale for NVIDIA, and unfortunately for them, it isn’t getting any better. Just four days from the official launch of the GeForce 400 series (the new series of graphics cards that will be powered by the Fermi GPU) and DigiTimes is reporting that a failure to get a better than 50% yield on the production fab on the Fermi chips is leading NVIDIA to redesign the GPU.

DigiTimes reports that TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) – NVIDIA’s long time chip fab – is unable to get the yield (number of usable chips) of the Fermi chips above 50%. While this is common early for a new processor, it’s uncommon that the company would redesign their product accordingly in response to poor yield. NVIDIA has now lowered the specs of the GeForce 400 cards to match Fermi’s poor early yields.

The new GeForce GTX 480 was supposed to have 512 cores, but NVIDIA has lowered that to 480. The mid-range GeForce GTX 470 will have even fewer cores at 448. The MSRP for the GTX 480 is still $499 while the GTX 470 comes in at $349. The source reports that when TSMC improves their yield, NVIDIA will be able to create new reference cards on the original spec (a GeForce GTX 485, or something).

TSMC and NVIDIA have been partners forever, but lately, things have been strained. At their Q4 2009 earnings call, NVIDIA cited TSMC’s poor yields with their 40nm chip fab for poor sales in that quarter, saying they could have sold more chips if TSMC had better yields. Now, it appears, TSMC’s poor fab yields are forcing NVIDIA to change the spec of their cards.

Despite yield issues, after months of waiting, NVIDIA’s GeForce 400 series will launch on March 26th, with cards expected to be released in great numbers on April 6th.