Contaminated wafers cost AMD and Nvidia foundry $550m in Q1

A bad batch of photoresist chemicals delivered to Nvidia and AMD semiconductor foundry, TSMC, will cost the company $550 million in Q1. One of TSMC’s chemical suppliers has a lot of explaining to do after an “abnormally treated” component caused TSMC to scrap thousands of 12/16nm wafers produced at its Fab 14B facility. The reports of TSMC’s unfortunate chemical cockup first made the rounds in January, with the pure-play fab confirming later in the month that poor quality chemicals had contaminated heaps of wafers. After managing to halt production and contain the foreign polymer before it did any more damage, the company had expected there to be no adverse impact on its Q1 financials as a result of the incident at its Nanke Technology Park. But that’s no longer the case. Lower-than-expected yields discovered towards the end of the manufacturing process has now led to TSMC scrapping higher numbers of wafers than first estimated, resulting in a reduction of Q1 revenue by $550 million. This is later to be made up in Q2.

from PCGamesN http://bit.ly/2IkVCuY