Bad bumps? A U.K. tech site is alleging that the latest Apple MacBook Pros contain Nvidia graphics chips with the same "bad bumps" problem that Nvidia addressed this summer and said was rectified.
Nvidia said in a phone interview on Tuesday that this is dead wrong.
First a little background. Nvidia issued a statement July 2 saying it would take a charge of up to $200 million to cover repairs due to a "weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems."
Both Hewlett-Packard and Dell have come out with statements addressing the issue in laptops. And both companies have programs that try to fix the issue.
U.K. tech site The Inquirer is saying that bad bumps--"tiny balls of solder that hold a chip to the green printed circuit board"--are still present in the GeForce 9600 graphics chips that ship in the newest MacBook Pros. An issue that The Inquirer claims is the root of the problem.
The Web site said it took a MacBook Pro off a store shelf, disassembled it, desoldered the chips, sawed them in half, encased them in Lucite, and ran them through a scanning electron microscope equipped with an X-ray microanalysis.
As a result, The Inquirer alleges that the MacBook Pros with the GeForce 9600 chips have the older, defective high-lead bumps, while the MacBook Air and MacBook have the newer eutectic solder (newer, low-lead bumps).
So, in essence, the MacBook and MacBook Air are fine, while the MacBook Pro is problematic.
Nvidia vehemently disagreed with the allegations, calling them completely untrue. The Inquirer's "initial analysis of problems with some of the older chips was already flawed," said Michael Hara, vice president, investor relations and communications at Nvidia.
The Inquirer reporter "believes high-lead bumps are bad. That's his underlying theory. It's not true," Hara said.
He continued: "When you build a device, it's the material properties and everything in combination that leads to the robustness of the design. What we call the 'material set.' It's a combination of the underfill (a kind of a glue that helps hold the chip down) and the bump together that creates that stability in that connection," he said.
Hara talked about how the original problem announced by Nvidia on July 2 was rectified. "A more robust underfill would have taken the stress off the bumps and kept that (original problem) from happening. What we did was, we just simply went to a more robust underfill. Stopped using that (previous) underfill, kept using high-lead bumps, but we changed the underfill. And now we don't see the problem."
"Intel has shipped hundreds of millions of chipsets that use the same material-set combo. We're using virtually the same materials that Intel uses in its chipsets," Hara said.
Hara also said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) ships a "staggering" number of chips to many companies worldwide with high-lead bumps. TSMC is the world's largest contract chip manufacturer and makes chips for Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and many other companies.
Nvidia also issued this written statement: "The GeForce 9600 GPU in the MacBook Pro does not have bad bumps. The material set (combination of underfill and bump) that is being used is similar to the material set that has been shipped in 100's of millions of chipsets by the world's largest semiconductor company (Intel)."
Nvidia on Wednesday introduced its GeForce 9400M graphics chip, a direct threat to Intel's graphics silicon.
Apple's choice of the 9400M for its refreshed MacBook line heralds a much-needed infusion of competition in the market for mobile integrated graphics--a low-cost solution that is built into Intel chipsets. To date, Intel has dominated the market, with many of the top notebook vendors defaulting to Intel graphics in low-end models and ultraportables. Apple chose Intel graphics for previous versions of the MacBook and MacBook Air.
Nvidia claims the GeForce 9400M is smaller and faster than Intel's popular integrated graphics silicon
(Credit: Nvidia)Not this time though. Apple did its homework and CEO Steve Jobs made a point Tuesday to cite the 9400M as a reason for better performance in the new MacBooks. You can bet that other PC makers are looking closely at the 9400M.
"Intel's technology is integrated throughout Apple's product line but we didn't win this particular design," Intel commented yesterday. Its newest graphics product is based on the G45 chipset.
The Apple announcement Tuesday is the "first in a string of announcements" coming from PC makers, said Bill Henry, director of notebook marketing at Nvidia. "Most of the top OEMs have designs in the works."
"It's ideal for getting really good graphics capability in 10-inch designs and 12-inch designs," Henry said, referring to small laptop designs that use screens sizes ranging from 10 to 12 inches. These are typically referred to as ultraportables.
Some important 9400M features include the integration of 16 streaming processors to boost game-playing performance and a technology called Hybird SLI, which allows Nvidia's integrated silicon to be paired with an external graphics card for more speed. (SLI stands for Scalable Link Interface.)
The 9400M can handle 30-frames-per-second frame rates in many games and supports Nvidia's PhysX technology for more realistic game playing.
From a PR perspective, Nvidia also made it clear Wednesday that the 9400M won't have any of the issues of past Nvidia mobile graphics. Some of Nvidia's mobile chips have had issues with weak die and packaging materials.
"We've updated the materials we're using to manufacture our chips," Henry said.
Nvidia also issued this statement: "Apple was fully aware of the issue during the MacBook development program, and they are satisfied that Nvidia has implemented corrective actions to ensure there will not be an issue in the future."
The chip is being manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company on a 65-nanometer process.
Nvidia has become a Silicon Valley hot spot for rumors. One is tied to an analyst downgrade Monday, the other to the rumored Apple MacBook refresh.
An analyst rekindled speculation Monday that the world's largest graphics chip supplier would sell off its chipset business, while rumors persist that the company would play a larger role in an expected refresh of the Apple MacBook.
Nvidia graphic on its notebook home page
(Credit: Nvidia)Nvidia shares fell Monday after a Pacific Crest analyst issued a negative report on the company's prospects. In the report, the analyst said "our checks confirm" that Nvidia will exit the chipset business next year.
Nvidia chipsets--sometimes referred to as MCPs--serve as supporting silicon for the company's graphics processors. In the past, Nvidia has denied that it will exit the chipset business.
The analyst also speculated that Nvidia will pre-announce negative results for the third quarter (ended October). Nvidia has been dogged by negative press and analyst reports after it disclosed issues with its processors and chipsets back in July.
If that wasn't enough, Pacific Crest said Nvidia may see share loss in the notebook market next year as a result of a future refresh of "Montevina" graphics silicon from Intel.
But not all is lost. On the upside, rumors persist that Nvidia will play a large role in an expected MacBook refresh this month. The latest rumor holds that Nvidia is showing off prototypes internally of upcoming MacBooks with new Nvidia silicon.
Some are even pointing to a graphic on the Nvidia notebook home page of a slim notebook design as a possible MacBook design--though a more plausible explanation is that it's simply generic artwork.
Apple uses Nvidia graphics chips in its high-end MacBook Pros, but the MacBook and MacBook Air use Intel integrated graphics silicon. One of the latter two could be recipients of new Nvidia graphics chips.
Nvidia would not comment on the rumors.
As it kicks off its Nvision conference Monday in San Jose, Calif., chipmaker Nvidia must be hoping that the N stands for "new" and "now"--and not "no thanks."
Nvidia is trying to shake off a tough second quarter and is staring down a slump in earnings tied to chip glitches and stiffer competition from rival Advanced Micro Devices. The home page for the Nvision 08 conference urges interested parties to "join the visual revolution" and promises attendees two days' worth of "jaw-dropping visual wonderment" in the realms of games, movies, and science.
A big chunk of the graphics chip supplier's woes stem from a $196 million second-quarter charge taken for defective graphics processors. Though Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has said that the "failures are only seen in a small percentage of all the chips," Hewlett-Packard and Dell have listed a number of models affected by the glitch.
A possibly bigger challenge is AMD's resurgent ATI graphics chip unit. Huang said in the second-quarter earnings conference call that his company had "underestimated" the price and performance of AMD's latest graphics chips, leading Nvidia to "to misposition our fall lineup" of chips.
(See: "AMD reclaims the high-end 3D card belt.")
AMD's recently introduced midrange and high-end graphics boards have been well-received and typically come at a discount to Nvidia boards that are roughly equal in performance. This forced Nvidia to cut prices on its performance graphics chips.
What does Nvidia think about AMD's new products? "Our competition has built a nice product but...the nice things that people write about their product is that it's well-priced," according to Huang, speaking during the earnings call.
Analysts confirm that AMD is making inroads. "(It's) pretty discernible. Certainly desktop standalone graphics, they've seen improvement there," said Dean McCarron, the principal and founder of Mercury Research, a company that tracks chip market movements.
... Read moreNvidia is in the throes of a minor meltdown. Its share price is collapsing as it grapples with widespread product defects, a resurgent Advanced Micro Devices, and a weak market.
It all started when Nvidia released a statement on July 2 saying it would take a $150 million to $200 million charge to cover the costs for repair and replacement of defective graphics silicon in notebook PCs. Though Nvidia didn't name any names, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and Lenovo, among others, use Nvidia graphics chips in their notebooks.
Then on Thursday, July 3, shares plunged $5.54, or just over 30 percent, and closed at $12.49. And share prices have continued to fall--though how much of the post-30-percent drop can be attributed to the weak stock market is not clear.
"There are two piece of news. One is the technical problem, the other part is that (Nvidia) isn't happy with where their business is going," said Dean McCarron, principal at Cave Creek, Ariz.-based Mercury Research.
Keener-than-usual competition is adding to product-defect woes. "Pricing has been more aggressive," McCarron said, referring to more competitive products from AMD's ATI graphics unit. "They did make some price adjustments on their GPU (graphics processing unit) products based on AMD being more competitive," McCarron said.
PC makers such as HP and Toshiba are also using more AMD-ATI graphics chips in notebook PCs, though the impact of this trend may be felt later rather than sooner. "I wouldn't necessarily look at it as being a tremendous share shift. We won't know until the end of the quarter. My suspicion is that (this quarter) a market share shift could be a small component," he said.
Beyond Nvidia's internal problems and the inter-company rivalry with AMD, McCarron sees a bigger issue looming that may affect not only Nvidia in a big way but AMD and Intel, too. "I am seeing some early signs that the market is weaker than forecast. China in particular seems to be much softer," McCarron said. This is a concern because China is now driving a lot of the growth, he said.
Stateside, an ill-timed Rambus lawsuit against Nvidia falls into the kick-them-when-they're-down category. Rambus, which makes a living--though not that successfully in recent years--suing other companies for patent infringement, has now set its sights on Nvidia. The Los Altos, Calif.-based company filed a lawsuit Thursday claiming Nvidia products with memory controllers for synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDR) and double data rate memory (DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, and GDDR3) infringe 17 Rambus patents.
But product defects will be the big issue that dogs Nvidia over the summer and weighs on its stock price. Here is an excerpt from Nvidia's 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 2. "While we have not been able to determine a root cause for these failures, testing suggests a weak material set of die/package combination, system thermal management designs."
McCarron said in some cases "you're getting enough mechanical stress that you're actually breaking the bond between the chip and the motherboard" which can cause a system with an Nvidia chip to fail.
- prev
- 1
- next
