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Thinking about modern chips in terms of units and inventory isn't the best way to do it. Cutting-edge logic isn't quite priced like software, but it's close eno

Thinking about modern chips in terms of units and inventory isn't the best way to do it. Cutting-edge logic isn't quite priced like software, but it's close enough: the first unit costs $10m in R&D and NRE (Non-Recurring Expenses, like mask sets and test tooling) and then the second unit costs $1 or so. My guess is that Magic Leap, a company infamous for spending profligately, paid for the NRE on this design, and then didn't buy very many of them or pay for exclusivity on it (or let any exclusivity go). AMD is notorious for shopping around designs they've already got ready to ship (probably related to sibling comment's observations about the console graphics market), and Valve runs lean despite not having to, and so this story adds up quite nicely. There may or may not have been some inventory lying around, but the NRE is usually the real story on these things. (It's also possible that the custom Magic Leap sections of this chip have terrible yield -- actually that wouldn't surprise me at all -- and so these were great candidates for die harvest. Which of course is also the sort of thing AMD loves to sell.)

modeless 3y ago
Interesting, why would one part of a chip have significantly worse yield than another?
- exmadscientist 3y ago
  It's just where the tightest structures (physically, electrically, or timing-wise) are found. The AMD cores and uncore are, I'm guessing, fairly well tuned to the process by skilled people. The bolt-on stuff often isn't so well done, particularly if an end-client project manager or beancounter is driving the schedule. So it's almost certain to happen if the added stuff has very complex paths, and you wouldn't be going to the effort of adding silicon if you didn't need it to do something interesting.... So, no proof, but it wouldn't be any kind of surprise if this were part of the problem.
- pjc50 3y ago
  It's where the cutting-edge work is, or where the analogue engineering is, and as such is very dependent on your simulation work being good enough. Or the designers may have chosen to put less slack there for higher performance at the cost of yield - this is something of a "bet" on the production process, which can turn out well or badly. Or it's where the chip is hottest.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
coffeebeqn 3y ago
It seems smart to go by the only successful handheld strategy - Nintendo always shops around for the cheapest chip that can get the job done. Even if it’s many years old as long as it’s cheap , highly available and can run what they need
- modeless 3y ago
  The difference is Nintendo builds their own killer apps exclusively for the hardware that they choose, so they can guarantee a good experience regardless of the performance level. Steam Deck doesn't have any native games. It's all games written for other platforms first and if the chip's performance doesn't meet a minimum bar then it just won't work.
  - dagmx 3y ago
    Nit: it does have the valve on-boarding game for it, but that doesn’t really change your point. Also Valve do some steamdeck optimizations for every game via their shared shader cache. Which enables it to run a lot smoother than competing portable x86 systems.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      > Also Valve do some steamdeck optimizations for every game via their shared shader cache Isn’t the only purpose of this skipping shader (re)compiling? As far as I understood it, they did it because compiling shaders both takes long on a handheld device and time is at a premium for handheld players. They don’t want to wait eight minutes for a shader compile.
      - dagmx 3y ago
        There’s two places where shader precompilation helps: 1. Load times if you’re compiling them on stage load 2. Dynamically on asset load during gameplay. The latter is one of the most major causes of stuttering in PC games, and Valves solution can greatly make a game feel smoother as a result.
  - 3y ago
acdha 3y ago
Do you have any idea what the lead time on a project like this would be? Given the timing for a bad 2019 leading into the pandemic and widespread predictions of severe economic shrinkage, I’m wondering whether what we’re seeing is that they had a design in-flight but someone panicked that they were going to be far short of their minimum commitments a second time. In that case, both Magic Leap and AMD would’ve been pretty motivated to have someone commit to things like fab capacity and Valve’s earlier work at least makes the possibility of shipping in a couple years seem potentially possible.

modeless 3y ago

Interesting, why would one part of a chip have significantly worse yield than another?

exmadscientist 3y ago
It's just where the tightest structures (physically, electrically, or timing-wise) are found. The AMD cores and uncore are, I'm guessing, fairly well tuned to the process by skilled people. The bolt-on stuff often isn't so well done, particularly if an end-client project manager or beancounter is driving the schedule. So it's almost certain to happen if the added stuff has very complex paths, and you wouldn't be going to the effort of adding silicon if you didn't need it to do something interesting.... So, no proof, but it wouldn't be any kind of surprise if this were part of the problem.
pjc50 3y ago
It's where the cutting-edge work is, or where the analogue engineering is, and as such is very dependent on your simulation work being good enough. Or the designers may have chosen to put less slack there for higher performance at the cost of yield - this is something of a "bet" on the production process, which can turn out well or badly. Or it's where the chip is hottest.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

coffeebeqn 3y ago

It seems smart to go by the only successful handheld strategy - Nintendo always shops around for the cheapest chip that can get the job done. Even if it’s many years old as long as it’s cheap , highly available and can run what they need

modeless 3y ago
The difference is Nintendo builds their own killer apps exclusively for the hardware that they choose, so they can guarantee a good experience regardless of the performance level. Steam Deck doesn't have any native games. It's all games written for other platforms first and if the chip's performance doesn't meet a minimum bar then it just won't work.
- dagmx 3y ago
  Nit: it does have the valve on-boarding game for it, but that doesn’t really change your point. Also Valve do some steamdeck optimizations for every game via their shared shader cache. Which enables it to run a lot smoother than competing portable x86 systems.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    > Also Valve do some steamdeck optimizations for every game via their shared shader cache Isn’t the only purpose of this skipping shader (re)compiling? As far as I understood it, they did it because compiling shaders both takes long on a handheld device and time is at a premium for handheld players. They don’t want to wait eight minutes for a shader compile.
    - dagmx 3y ago
      There’s two places where shader precompilation helps: 1. Load times if you’re compiling them on stage load 2. Dynamically on asset load during gameplay. The latter is one of the most major causes of stuttering in PC games, and Valves solution can greatly make a game feel smoother as a result.
- 3y ago

acdha 3y ago

Do you have any idea what the lead time on a project like this would be? Given the timing for a bad 2019 leading into the pandemic and widespread predictions of severe economic shrinkage, I’m wondering whether what we’re seeing is that they had a design in-flight but someone panicked that they were going to be far short of their minimum commitments a second time. In that case, both Magic Leap and AMD would’ve been pretty motivated to have someone commit to things like fab capacity and Valve’s earlier work at least makes the possibility of shipping in a couple years seem potentially possible.