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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 29 2019, @02:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-so-fab-ulous dept.

https://translate.google.com/translate?u=https://www.ettoday.net/news/20190128/1367970.htm&sl=zh&tl=en

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is reportedly dealing with the quality of its silicon wafers causing suspended production at one of its plants. Impact is to chips having 16/12nm features and major vendors such as NVIDIA are reportedly affected.

Translated from Chinese:

TSMC (2330) Nanke 14 Factory today (28th) reported the use of substandard chemical raw materials, causing paralysis of tens of thousands of wafer production. In this regard, TSMC confirmed and pointed out the detailed quantity and damage caused. Subsequent statistics and processing are underway and will not change the financial forecast for this quarter.

TSMC's Fab 14 B plant in Nanke has a problem with wafer quality defects today, mainly because TSMC imports a batch of substandard chemical materials, which causes wafers to be defective in the production process, but the problem is in the production process. It is impossible to check out that the number of wafers affected by the film has exceeded 10,000 pieces, and the production line has been temporarily suspended. Since 14 customers cover NVIDIA, MEDIATEK, Huawei Hisilicon and other heavyweight customers, the market is concerned about whether the operation is affected.

Also at Hard|OCP.


Original Submission

Related Stories

TSMC Contamination Issue Expected to Result in $550 Million in Lost Revenue 7 comments

TSMC's Fab 14B Photoresist Material Incident: $550 Million in Lost Revenue

TSMC[*] on Friday revealed more details regarding an incident with a photoresist material at its Fab 14B earlier this year. The contaminated chemical damaged wafers on TSMC's 12 nm and 16 nm lines, and the company now expects the full impact of the event to reduce their revenue by a whopping $550 million in the first quarter.

TSMC said that a batch of photoresist it used included a specific element which was abnormally treated, creating a foreign polymer in the photoresist. The problem was detected late when the wafer yeilds were lower than expected. As it turns out, consequences of the photoresist incident at Fab 14B were more serious than initially calculated by TSMC. There are media reports claiming that between 10,000 and 30,000 wafers were affected and had to be scrapped, but TSMC has never confirmed either of the numbers.

According to media reports, the affected companies include HiSilicon/Huawei, NVIDIA, and MediaTek, but TSMC has not disclosed names of its customers that suffered from the incident. The only thing that TSMC does confirm is that it has already negotiated new delivery scheduled with its customers.

[*] TSMC: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

Previously: TSMC Fab 14 B hit by Massive Wafer Defection due to Chemical Contamination, 16/12nm Production Line


Original Submission

6 to 9 Exabytes of Toshiba/WD NAND Production Gone Due to 13-Minute Power Outage 32 comments

Toshiba & WD NAND Production Hit By Power Outage: 6 Exabytes Lost

Toshiba Memory and Western Digital on Friday disclosed that an unexpected power outage in the Yokkaichi province in Japan on June 15 affected the manufacturing facilities that are jointly operated. Right now, production facilities are partially halted and they are expected to resume operations only by mid-July.

Western Digital says that the 13-minute power outage impacted wafers that were processed, the facilities, and production equipment. The company indicates that the incident will reduce its NAND flash wafer supply in Q3 by approximately 6 EB (exabytes), which is believed to be about a half of the company's quarterly supply of NAND. Toshiba does not disclose the impact the outage will have on its NAND wafer supply in the coming months, but confirms that the fabs are partially suspended at the moment. Keeping in mind that Toshiba generally uses more capacity of the fabs than WD, the impact on its supply could be significantly higher than 6 EB with some estimating that it could be as high as ~9 EB.

Both companies are assessing the damage at the moment, so the financial harm of the incident is unclear. Not even counting potential damage to production tools and other equipment used at the fabs, 6 EB of NAND cost a lot of money. Furthermore, analysts from TrendForce believe that a consequence of the outage will be some loss of confidence from clients of both companies, which will have a financial impact as well.

1 exabyte = 1 million terabytes.

Related: TSMC Fab 14 B hit by Massive Wafer Defection due to Chemical Contamination, 16/12nm Production Line
TSMC Contamination Issue Expected to Result in $550 Million in Lost Revenue


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:05AM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:05AM (#793404) Journal

    AMD's upcoming parts should be "7nm" TSMC with some use of "14nm" GlobalFoundries. I'm not sure if the GPUs will use "14nm" components.

    Still, many of AMD's golden eggs are in one basket now because of GloFo's retreat.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @05:14AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @05:14AM (#793433)

      Still, many of AMD's golden eggs are in one basket now because of GloFo's retreat.

      Agreed, but to be fair the same type of situation has also applied to Intel.

      And given the numerous delays with Intel's 10 nm process node, they may arguably be worse off.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:11PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:11PM (#793747) Journal

        Agreed, but Intel is in a position of printing money they don't really deserve. They probably have over 95% of the server CPU market right now. AMD has to fight tooth and nail just to survive, while Intel has plenty of room to fail and coast. So a fab-related issue would hit AMD harder than Intel. AMD is also just one of several TSMC customers, and they don't have control over what goes on at TSMC.

        I guess if TSMC screws up big time, AMD will start holding discussions with Samsung, which would be one of the last bleeding-edge options available. Worst case scenario, AMD could pay Intel [intel.com] to fab some of its chips.

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  • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:09AM (2 children)

    by stretch611 (6199) on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:09AM (#793455)

    All the other chip makers with fabs are examining the market right now to calculate how much this means they can raise their prices. (Not to mention how to spend their increased bonus this year .)

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:39AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:39AM (#793479)

      Just when the RAM memory prices were starting to fall after 2 years of collusion...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @11:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @11:33AM (#793493)

        Prices go UP UP UP and everybody's happy!

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:25AM

    by Dr Spin (5239) on Tuesday January 29 2019, @09:25AM (#793469)

    Have the wafers become North Korean spies?

    Defection does not mean "become defective"!

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @02:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @02:07PM (#793541)

    A major player in the world's chip supply chain has been using poor quality inputs.
    I wonder if this is the first time, or just the first time it made the news?
    Too bad. It calls to question the reliability of a lot of gadgets.

    TSMC must be pretty skilled if they can make chips with a poor quality inputs.
    Just think what they could do starting from good stuff.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:03PM (#793677)

    Chinese business dealings... typical.
    American manufacturers have been bitten by crap chemicals made in the PRC; I wonder where TSMC's came from?

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