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Forums - Gaming - XBONE having problems with eSRAM yield. Crazy Buttocks confirms.

walsufnir on 07 June 2013
ethomaz said:

walsufnir said:

Basing on an assumption of ethomaz... is... haha, no, I like him, too, but the numbers are gambled, really.

Costs highly depend on contracts and stuff, we will never really know the truth. Also the high failure rate has been clear to everyone who was involved in the project, that's for sure. If additional costs have to be paid by the customer is also a decision made by the console-manufacturer.

Even if 100% of the ships are GOOD the Xbone's APU is more expensive than PS4's APU... you can produce more chips for PS4 in a wafer than Xbone... it is 5 billion transistors vs 3 billion transistors.

There are no magical process that can change that... big chips are more expensives than small one... no matter what contract you do or anything else.

The Xbone's APU is 40% bigger than PS4's APU in transistors... MS can make a more dense chip (small transistors and more close to each other) but there a limit for that... at the end the PS4's APU will be small and cheaper.

My prediction...

PS4's APU: 250mm²
Xbone's APU: 410mm²


I never doubted it! But the ratios from yours were gambled but there is nothing wrong with that - people understood what you tried to say. But it is just too easy to judge this from our position how much more expensive the Bone-chip is because for this we would need further details we will never get :)



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ethomaz on 07 June 2013

walsufnir said:

I never doubted it! But the ratios from yours were gambled but there is nothing wrong with that - people understood what you tried to say. But it is just too easy to judge this from our position how much more expensive the Bone-chip is because for this we would need further details we will never get :)

You don't need more detail than the number of transistors do know that the Xbone's chip will be more expensive like you don't know mode details to know that GDDR5 is more expensive than DDR3 too.



walsufnir on 07 June 2013
ethomaz said:

walsufnir said:

I never doubted it! But the ratios from yours were gambled but there is nothing wrong with that - people understood what you tried to say. But it is just too easy to judge this from our position how much more expensive the Bone-chip is because for this we would need further details we will never get :)

You don't need more detail than the number of transistors do know that the Xbone's chip will be more expensive like you don't know mode details to know that GDDR5 is more expensive than DDR3 too.


But there is no direct relation to "number of transistors" = costs. I don't say it won't cost more but we don't have actual numbers to say how much. Saying "more expensive" is also true if the difference would be 2 cents per chip (yes, it is more). The interesting question would be "how much more" and this is what we don't have and probably never will (actual numbers, not estimates from websites or forum-users).



ethomaz on 07 June 2013

walsufnir said:

But there is no direct relation to "number of transistors" = costs. I don't say it won't cost more but we don't have actual numbers to say how much. Saying "more expensive" is also true if the difference would be 2 cents per chip (yes, it is more). The interesting question would be "how much more" and this is what we don't have and probably never will (actual numbers, not estimates from websites or forum-users).

TSMC price of the 28nm process is $4000-$5000 per Wafer... you can make contract deals but the price will not be much less than that... now how many Xbone's chips and PS4's chips can fit a 300mm Wafer?

I will use this calculator to make some maths about that: http://www.silicon-edge.co.uk/j/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68

1. The Wafer used for 28nm is the 300mm.
2. I will user a square chip to make the things easy... 17x17mm (289mm²) for PS4 and 20x20mm (400mm²) for Xbone.
3. I will use the standard spacing of the tools.

PS4: 198 chips per Wafer
Xbone: 140 chips per Wafer

Assuming all chips (100%) are GOOD and the TSMC prices:

PS4: $5000 / 198 = ~$25 per chip
Xbone: $5000 / 140 = ~$35 per chip

PS4: $4000 / 198 = ~$20 per chip
Xbone: $4000 / 140 = ~$28 per chip

That's the point... PS4's chip will be always cheaper than Xbone's chip even if MS gets a $1000 discount per wafer more than Sony and the perfect (and impossible) scenario happens (100% chips GOOD).

I can't see neither Sony or MS with over 80% chips GOOD in the initial production... with the latest news about issues in MS production I'm more inclined to say they have a less than 20% chips GOOD actually (20% of 140 = 28 chips per Wafer... $4000 / 28 = $142 per chip).

PS. I don't know the size of MS or Sony ship... neither the spacing or if the chip is a square or not... I don't know even they will use TSMC or other foundry... I used a lot of optmistics numbers for MS because the chip is bigger than 400mm² with 5 billion transistors.

FACT: PS4's chip will be always cheaper than Xbone's chip unless MS move to a new process (22nm) and Sony not.



kitler53 on 07 June 2013
kowenicki said:
Xenostar said:
kowenicki said:
ethomaz said:
walsufnir said:

Dat moody cloud! Haha. I still hope MS can keep competitive so $ony won't get an easy win! But it doesn't look so good by now, sadly.

People will buy Xbone no matter what... the point is how much money MS will loose to fix these issues in the early of the gen.


whatever it is, if it even happens... we all know they can afford it and it wont even make a dent.

This is MS.


Sony Fans PS3 launch levels of arrogance there.

Kind of...

Except theirs was arrogance tinged with ignorance because Sony actually couldn't afford any slip ups. 

this is pure arrogance.

 


lol, very well played kowenicki.  very well played indeed. :P



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ethomaz on 07 June 2013

From GAF.

The size of the memory chip is know because you can look at the spec sheet in the manufacturer website.

Seems like 100mm² bigger than what I expected... this chip is really HUGE!!!



drkohler on 07 June 2013
ethomaz said:

Seems like 100mm² bigger than what I expected... this chip is really HUGE!!!

Not really. That crude picture roughly shows the size of the chip carrier. The new AMD 8970 gpu is estimated to have 5.5-6B transistors on a 410-430mm^2 die, so a max APU size of 400-430mm^2 is well within reach.



couponbook2 on 07 June 2013

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Wlakiz on 07 June 2013
walsufnir said:
Otakumegane said:
Can someone explain eSRAM and why it's so important all of a sudden?


First, it's not important all of a sudden - it is usual stuff in consoles, even ps2 had it :)

 

What is it for? Well, the "path" from and to cpu is "long" and slow - that's why we have caches in processors so that often needed data are "nearer" and faster accessable to the cpu.  We now also have 2nd-level-cache, sometimes 3rd-level-cache, and then ram. You can think of another cache-like memory between the cpu and ram - esram is an especially high bandwidth, low-latency memory-solution.

Look at this picture:

From high to low memory is increased but therefore speed is also decreased - think of esram between ram and the caches.

... don't give out false information please.

eSRAM => Embedded Static Random Access Memory.

In the pyramid, it is the 'Physical memory'.. its NOT a cache thats 'nearer' or 'further' from the CPU.

/facepalm

So what exactly is the problem here? 

http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-sram-and-dram/

1. SRAM comes in smaller size (You don't have 4gb of sram like you do with DRAMs) . So microsoft needs to put an 'array' of them to match the amount of memory needed

2. SRAM cost more transitors. DRAM only takes 1 transistor per bit, SRAM takes 6.

3. More transistor = more heat.

4. More heat = more errors

5. To dial down the heat issue, they reduce the speed.

Other issues:

More transistors = lower die yield = more expensive to produce.



sergiodaly on 07 June 2013
Slimebeast said:
walsufnir said:
Slimebeast said:
This is hilarious.

If it's true like Ethomaz said, that the Xbone APU is more expensive than the PS4 APU and will remain so over the whole generation, and yet the PS4 is 50% more powerful, now that must be seen as a serious engineering failure.

I'm so pissed off. How can they fail so bad?

I want xbone to be able to give PS4 a match, a good fight. Not become laughing stock.

 

It's not the apu, it is the whole chip with APU, memory controller, move units and esram. Of course this is more expensive.

All right, the whole chip.

But it's the same problem - how can something be "of course more expensive" and at the same time weaker than the competition?

What's the benefit of this design decision? That the machine will be able to communicate faster with separate OPs (which makes it fast to switch between different programs, like gaming, Kinect, Skype, TV etc)? That's the only argument I've heard so far.

hi... sorry to get into the middle of this argument... but the reason MS has a bigger and more expensive chip is to allow them to use much less expensive RAM... its like this... MS= 40$ chip + 50$ mem  while sony = 30$ chip + 80$ mem (these numbers are made up just to show a POV)

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