Bumpgate: Difference between revisions
Tonal edits for Microsoft and Sony's sections in "Companies involved and responses". Planning to do the same to the rest of the article later. |
Fixed up the Intro section to be more brief and edited for clarity. (This article is a bit too specific/covers too old of an incident to show up in the anticipated extension, I think, but you never know.) |
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[[File:Underfilled Die.png|alt=The image shows a diagram of a computer processor. On the bottom, there is a green rectangle labeled "substrate". On top of the substrate, there is a black rectangle labeled "chip", which refers to the die. Between the die and the substrate, there are small silver bumps equally spaced apart, encased within a white "filling". The bumps are the solder bumps connecting the die to the substrate, and the white filling is the underfill- meant to strengthen the solder bumps.|thumb|A diagram of a computer processor. When the underfill becomes too soft at any point in the processor's normal operating temperatures, the solder bumps under the die ("chip") can crack, disconnecting the die from the substrate. This leads to the processor failing, and in turn, leads to a critical system failure for the device it's in.]] | [[File:Underfilled Die.png|alt=The image shows a diagram of a computer processor. On the bottom, there is a green rectangle labeled "substrate". On top of the substrate, there is a black rectangle labeled "chip", which refers to the die. Between the die and the substrate, there are small silver bumps equally spaced apart, encased within a white "filling". The bumps are the solder bumps connecting the die to the substrate, and the white filling is the underfill- meant to strengthen the solder bumps.|thumb|A diagram of a computer processor. When the underfill becomes too soft at any point in the processor's normal operating temperatures, the solder bumps under the die ("chip") can crack, disconnecting the die from the substrate. This leads to the processor failing, and in turn, leads to a critical system failure for the device it's in.]] | ||
'''Bumpgate''' | '''Bumpgate''' (also known as '''Nvidiagate''') was a scandal where [[Nvidia]] and ATI Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) made from 2005-2010 were prone to high failure rates because of a design flaw that caused cracked solder bumps under the die.<ref name=":0" /> | ||
Despite the name "Nvidiagate", this defect was widespread in the industry. It impacted many Nvidia GPUs (manufactured 2006-2010), but also affected ATI GPUs (2006-2008). Among retro console enthusiasts, the defect is best known to have caused the high failure rate of the ATI Xenos GPUs in [[Microsoft]]'s early Xbox 360 models<ref name=":3" /> (2005-May 2008) and the Nvidia-based RSX GPUs in [[Sony]]'s early PlayStation 3 models (2006-Fall 2008).<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=RIP Felix |first= |date=23 Dec 2022 |title=A PS3 Story: The Yellow Light of Death |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za7WTNwAX0c |url-status=live |access-date=2 Jun 2025 |website=YouTube}}</ref> Retro computer enthusiasts may also know of the defect from certain models of Dell and [[HP Inc.|HP-Compaq]] laptops (2005-2010), as well as certain [[Apple]] Macbook Pros (May 2007-September 2008).<ref name=":16">{{Cite web |title=Affected Models |url=http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/affectedmodels.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101001080616/http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/affectedmodels.html |archive-date=1 Oct 2010 |access-date=7 Jun 2025 |website=The NVIDIA GPU Litigation}}</ref> | |||
==Background== | ==Background== | ||