3 ms·
Interesting, why would one part of a chip have significantly worse yield than another?
by modeless 3y ago
Interesting, why would one part of a chip have significantly worse yield than another?
- exmadscientist 3y agoIt'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 agoIt'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.