Comment by abrookewood
3 days ago
Looking at the H100 on the left, why is the chip yield (72) based on a circular layout/constraint? Why do they discard all of the other chips that fall outside the circle?
3 days ago
Looking at the H100 on the left, why is the chip yield (72) based on a circular layout/constraint? Why do they discard all of the other chips that fall outside the circle?
AFAIK all wafer ingots are cylinders, which means the wafers themselves are a circular cross section. So manufacturing is binpacking rectangles in to a circle. Plus different effects/defects in the chips based on the distance from the edge of the wafer.
So I believe its the opposite: why are they representing the larger square and implying lower yield off the wafer in space that doesnt practically exist?
Because the circle is the physical silicon. Any chips that fall outside the circle are only part of a full chip. They will be physically missing half the chip.
That's just the shape of the wafer. I don't know why the diagram continued the grid outside it.