Los Angeles (CA) – A tiny material issue in Nvidia’s GPUs has cost Nvidia $200 million so far: The problem boils down to the solder bump material, in Nvidia’s case high-lead that was used in all of the firm’s GPUs that were produced until late July , and we still do not know how serious the issue really is. According to our sources, Nvidia has switched to eutectic solder bumps in recent weeks and there is now a new, apparently independent research report, that claims that eutectic solder bumps, which are used for example by AMD’s ATI unit, may live much longer than high-lead versions. Of course, switching to eutectic isn’t the entire solution, as the material has a much lower melting point than high-lead.

The research report surfaced late last week on the Electronic Thin Film lab of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), a known authority in material sciences. Author K. N. Tu investigated high-lead (90Pb10Sn) as well as eutectic SnPb (60Pb40Sn) and their exposure to fatigue cracking under thermal stress.

Nvidia’s use of high-lead solder joints and temperatures higher than 70 degrees Celsius are generally believed to be the reasons of the GPU failures reported by the company. The underfill is used to redistribute thermal stress: According to Tu, if “the underfill has [a] low glass transition temperature, it becomes soft at the device operation temperature, and the thermal stress will be taken up mostly by the solder joints.  The solder joint at the corners will fail first.” In each cycle, there is elastic deformation as well as plastic deformation.

The analysis is based on the thought that “when the total plastic energy or work-done to the solder is beyond a threshold value, it will crack due to excessive work hardening and sever plastic deformation.” The critical observation is that the plastic energy produced in the high-lead layer is about 100 times larger than in the eutectic SnPb joint - which leads the scientist to believe that “cycle times needs to fail” are “100 times longer” with the eutectic solder bump. Taking into account that he assumed an “ideal model” for his analysis, he concludes that “it is reasonable to say that it is at the least 10 times longer” in a real life model.

The translation is that eutectic solder joints may have a longer life than the high-lead joints, which would ultimately give such a semiconductor a longer life. We were not able to find out whether Tu’s research was actually commissioned by Nvidia or AMD/ATI, but the timing of the release clearly suggests that the results are aimed at shedding some light on the material issue in Nvidia’s GPUs.   

If Tu’s findings are accurate, then one could conclude that simply switching to eutectic solder joints will cure Nvidia’s headache. However, there are a couple of issues that may prevent a one-to-one transition. First, a transition requires a redesign of the power distribution through a chip, since the melting point of eutectic joints is much longer than in high lead.

Also, according to Tu, “the high-lead solder is known to have better resistance to electromigration, eutectic solder is not, especially when current crowding occurs at the cathode entrance where the electrons enter the solder bumps.” The scientist states that it is unclear whether “electromigration will enhance the failure caused by temperature cycle or power cycle”, but it appears to be clear that a simple switch without further research is simply not possible with a product that is shipped in millions of units.

Overall, Tu believes that the high-lead solder joint “has a built-in weakness” due to the thin layer of eutectic SnPb solder in the joint.  “The eutectic SnPb has a low yield stress and it will deform first and lead to stress concentration and to accumulate high plastic strain energy,” Tu writes. In contrast, the “homogeneous eutectic SnPb solder joint tends to have a uniform composition and much lower plastic deformation so the accumulation of plastic strain energy per unit volume is lower.”

“If we define the failure by an energy criterion, the eutectic SnPb solder joint may have at least ten times longer life-time than the composite solder joint,” Tu wrote. However, he stopped short of actually predicting the actual life time of both joints – which would require “the real microstructure of these two kinds of flip chip solder joints [to] be studied and actual failure rate [to] be measured.”
 
We recently reported that Nvidia, which switched to eutectic solder bumps in late July, has switched back to high-lead solder bumps in an upcoming graphics card series. Now we hear that Nvidia has switched is strategy again and in fact is using eutectic joints in its next generation of GPUs.          

Ridiculous

Sep 29, 2008 08:07     

Don't these companies know anything about the material their using in their products...
ish report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

solder bump baloney

Sep 29, 2008 09:13     

What a bunch of baloney re high lead solder bump reliability. IBM used them, and perhaps invented them, for DECADES in their mainframe computers. The underfill may or may not be a separate problem.
Scott Graham report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -8

nVidia is a joke

Sep 29, 2008 10:34     

they got caught, when they clearly thought no one would know. now they are going to change their gpu names again, hoping you will not realize, well most people wont. evil nvidia at it again as always.
boycott apple report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Re: nvidia is a scam artist corp

Sep 29, 2008 10:37     

they play every dirty trick in their dirty trick book they got. nothing ever surprises me anymore coming from nVidia. enjoy your faulty cards and hope you dont ever go above 70 (Temp).
x1reme report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -4

Does this mean Nvidias die really fast or that ATI will last 300 years beyond its useful life?

Sep 29, 2008 19:25     

The useful life of GPU equipment is at most 3-5 years, assuming Moore's Law keeps on going and financial depreciation schedules don't change much. It might even be shorter, since the main consumers for high-end graphics are gamers who always need the latest cutting edge stuff to kill orcs with. So does this study mean that a significant fraction of nVidia gear will fail earlier than that? Or does it mean that ATI equipment's solder joints will last 30-300 years, long after the graphics card and probably the PC itself has ceased to be interesting except to retro gamers?

Bill report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Time to redesign!

Sep 29, 2008 22:21     

Thank goodness nVidia doesn't make crucial components for the military, like the Stealth Bomber. :| Personally, I think they should redesign how the GPU is mounted. Perhaps in a socket configuration, just think how sweet it would be, to be able to update/replace your GPU. Even the use of pins, like the older CPUs but soldered through the PCB, thus increasing the amount of solder & cooling surface would be ideal. Only the future will tell...

Erwin report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +3

editing?

Sep 29, 2008 23:41     

Typos everywhere, and to think this was picked up by slashdot. Lets try to do some basic spellchecking before we rush out the door with this kind of an article? thanks!
Kyle report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Why CPU can use high Pb bump

Sep 30, 2008 13:46     

C4 with high Pb bump has been used by Intel and IBM in CPU for long time, why that doesn't cause failure? CPU and GPU are different?
TW report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2

Eutectic is Better

Oct 02, 2008 22:38     

Clearly better to use the laser - cleaner and longer lasting, period.
Drifter report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

it all depends on the underfill

Oct 03, 2008 13:21     

As long as the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the underfill is higher than the operating temp of the GPU, the high Pb bumps will be fine. In fact, they will be more reliable due to their higher electromigration resistance. This how CPUs are made with high Pb bumps. Nvidia made a very bad decision by combining low-Tg underfill with high Pb bumps in their application...or they did a bad job of keeping their chips operating below the Tg of the underfill. It's the same effect either way.

packaging guy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +3

Here's what an Nvidia VP said about the chip issue:...

Oct 27, 2008 21:53     

Here's what an Nvidia VP said about the chip issue: "I don't want to minimize the issue, but it is not like Tylenol or Odwalla or Firestone tires. You weren't going to die from this problem. You are not going to get burned. You are not going to -- it's just your notebook doesn't work." My union is supporting a consumer recall of affected Nvidia chips. See www.recallnvidia.org for more info about the chip problem and our recall effort.

My Nvidia Fail report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Amazing... the tx1000 is affected as well

Jan 19, 2009 16:44     

http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/se...=109447627 1230406742710 28353475
s report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

HP & nVidia GPU Defects - "HP Be Fair! Campaign"

Feb 04, 2009 18:25     

I am having virtually the same problems with a TX1260ea laptop with an AMD processor although, speaking to HPs UK Support Centre yesterday, I was clearly advised that the TX Series laptops are NOT INCLUDED in the list of units with the faulty nVidia GPU chips. They stated that TXs are not included because: ONLY 2 or 3 out of 5 are experiencing the problem so... THEY PRESUMABLY REGARD THIS FAILURE RATE AS ACCEPTABLE! I asked to speak to the support manager, but was put through to the complaints centre, where I was told categorically that I would have to pay for the repair and if I was not happy that I should call Trading Standards. The Trading Standards website (www.tradingstandards.gov.uk) state the following: Buying Goods - Your Rights for England, Wales and Northern Ireland) When you buy goods from a trader, you enter into a contract, which is controlled by many laws including, the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended by the Sale and Supply of Goods Act 1994 and the Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002). The law gives you certain statutory rights, including that the goods are of satisfactory quality, as described and fit for their purpose. If things go wrong when you purchase goods, you may be entitled to ask for a full refund, compensation, or a repair or replacement. Any guarantee provided is extra to your rights under the Sale of Goods Act. Whilst HP reminded me that my laptop is 2 months out of warranty, the Sale of Goods Act might suggest that the warranty is irrelevant if the goods were not of satisfactory quality in the first instance. I will campaign through www.hpstolemymoney.com to petition HP's senior management for action! I WILL PURSUE THIS FURTHER WITH HP!

Stuart Rivers report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

HP and nVidia - downright cheating customers!

Feb 04, 2009 20:21     

This has now become a huge fiasco with so many notebooks failing around the world because of single reason - that of faulty GPU and faulty thermal design. Why doesn't HP and nVidia accept their botch up and come clean.
Vishnu report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Come on HP! Stand up and be counted.

Feb 18, 2009 19:29     

I had the misfortune to purchase 2 HP pavillion computers in January and April 2007. The first was a dv9200, with an AMD chip, costing me £990. The second was a dv9299ea, with an Intel chip, costing me £1649.99. The first has had 2 motherboard replacements while within the first year of warranty. It has failed again, and due to having the AMD chip, is covered by an extended warranty. I can send it back to HP to get it repaired again - but what for?! It will only fail again! The second PC has completely failed about 6 weeks ago. I can’t even turn it on. The fault is the same as with the first - GPU failure. This computer is not covered by the extended warranty as it has the Intel chip. HP will do nothing, so I have sought legal address, and been advised to claim for a full refund from the retailers as the computers do not meet the legal requirements of the Sale of Goods act (1979) in UK. The poor retailer will have to chase HP for their reimbursement - but at least I will legally be able to get my money back. I will not be buying HP ever again. They have dealt with this matter atrociously, refusing to acknowledge a fault despite literally hundreds within their own forum complaining of identical issues. And their fixes for the few ‘lucky’ ones that manage to get the extended warranty are doomed to fail again. I have researched and found that this is almost guaranteed to happen. So my recommendation would be - avoid buying from HP. They may have the capacity to develop and sell new technology, but they seem unable to support it. And they do not respect the legal rights of consumers, for which they will unfortunately have to pay for - either in loss of customer loyalty, financial renumeration, or both.

Tamar report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

wwwDOThpliesDOTcom - resources and tips for dealing w/ HP

Apr 14, 2009 15:22     

For anybody experiencing issues with HP laptops and the defective Nvidia chips, please visit wwwDOThpliesDOTcom.
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