News & Analysis
The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall
Junko Yoshida
6/9/2008 8:52 PM EDT
ANAHEIM, Calif. — When Microsoft Corp. announced a mammoth global recall of its Xbox 360 a year ago, the software giant never disclosed the exact source of the game console's heat problem that led to the fiasco.
Now, in an unlikely venue at Design Automation Conference here, Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, disclosed that the problem started in a graphic chip. Lewis offered this offhand revelation while discussing the changing ASIC and ASSP landscape for his DAC audience.
The Xbox 360 recall a year ago happened because "Microsoft wanted to avoid an ASIC vendor," said Lewis. Microsoft designed the graphic chip on its own, cut a traditional ASIC vendor out of the process and went straight to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., he explained.
But in the end, by going cheap--hoping to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall.
To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (Based on a previous report, the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI Technologies, now part of AMD.)
Asked the moral of the story, Lewis said: "Had Microsoft left the graphics processor design to an ASIC vendor in the first place, would they have been able to avoid this problem?
"Probably. The ASIC vendor could have been able to design a graphics processor that dissipates much less power."
During Microsoft's conference call with analysts in July 2007, Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, withheld details of the Xbox 360 problem, other than calling it a "design issue." When pressed by an analyst if it was caused by Xbox production or assembly, Microsoft's Bach said at that time, "No."
He added: "Our partners are doing good work." Rather, "the challenge" was created by "Microsoft-initiated design,"Bach said.
Although some system companies have been experimenting with direct links to foundries by cutting out the ASIC design houses, the death of ASICs may have been greatly exaggerated. More accurately, "many ASSP companies are designing ASICs for high volume customers," Gartner's Lewis said. The "ASIC market is far from dead, but it trails the ASSP market," he said.
Lewis cited Nokia, the world's largest handset vendor, which has stopped designing its own ASICs. It recently opened up its IC sourcing to various chip vendors beyond usual suspects such as Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics.
"System OEMs have no business designing ASICs any longer," said Lewis. The reality is that system companies are finding it hard to do enough ASIC designs to keep in-house design teams employed.
When it was pointed out that Microsoft still has its own semiconductor technology group that is still designing various chips, Lewis responded, "How many ASICs per year does Microsoft design? Not many" compared to experienced ASIC/ASSIP vendors.
Microsoft did not respond to requests to comment on this story.
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green_ee
6/10/2008 2:48 PM EDT
Well, at least we know that Microsoft's hardware quality is consistent with their software quality.......;-(
All joking aside, my 360 just died 2 days ago with a near-useless diagnostic message (E 74), and a few months past the 1 year warranty, so I'll probably have to foot the bill to get it repaired. I never received any word of a product recall of my unit. If Microsoft knowingly withheld relevant information affecting a recall until after a large quantity of units lapsed beyond their warranty period, for example units sold around a holday gift season, it's great fodder for a class-action suit.
Making chips that can last at least few years isn't rocket science; we've been doing it in high-volume for decades now. But it does require discipline and paying attention to details.
Makes me yearn for the "good ole days" when you could take your box of vacuum tubes down to Radio Shack, pop them on the tester, and fix the problem yourself. Sigh, my wife wont let me put a deep-submicron fab line and a BGA rework station in the garage.....
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Work to Ride, RIde to Work
6/10/2008 6:30 PM EDT
Drack, it wood be so much easier to take you seriously if you spent a little more time in English class instead of the computer lab.
its = it's ;
plan = plain ;
were = where ;
u = you ;
i = I ;
write = writer ;
probally = probably ;
tablot = ? ;
there = their ;
acuall = actual ;
And oh, by the way, who moderates and validates the information on forums. They are notoriously inaccurate with loads of information from self-described experts. It takes a discriminating eye and intimate knowledge of the subject to separate the wheat from the chaff on forums.
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Jenos
6/10/2008 7:37 PM EDT
...well the gpu in the xbox 360 is actually and ATI chip designed by ATI, and had nothing to do with the cause of the failures, that was do to a bad cooling system design. Also there was never a recall, just a warranty extension for the particular problem that was caused by a cooling system issue. Good to see people still toss articles together without doing any wasteful research.
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rak1
6/10/2008 11:27 PM EDT
If the speaker was trying to refer to "the former ATI Technologies", why would they refer to "an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States"? Wouldn't that be more likely to refer to a company that, say, designs graphics chips in the US?
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Your Mom
6/11/2008 10:49 AM EDT
I was going to say the same thing. Microsoft has not and never will give a recall, they just sweap it under the rug and have 'fixed' the problem for their future units so they can lower their failure rate. It should have been recalled but they wont do it.
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DoohanOK
6/11/2008 11:36 PM EDT
For starters there was no "recall". Microsoft merely admitted that they had a major problem and extended the warranty (for the 3RROD only) from 12-months to 3-years from original purchase date. So suck on that byte sized fact.
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LeeC22
6/13/2008 3:16 AM EDT
Work to Ride, RIde to Work...
You never finish a sentence with a semi-colon. Also "who moderates and validates the information on forums." is a question, not a statement and requires a question mark, not a full stop.
If you're going to be a pedantic at least do it properly!
Oh and FYI, Tablot = Tabloid
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SyrinxPriest
6/16/2008 12:08 PM EDT
When did "pedantic" become a noun? Glass houses man.
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Nearly always right
7/17/2008 5:32 AM EDT
It is highly likely that Microsoft knew that the 360 could overheat but after weighing up the many market variables decided to get to market and deal with the problem later. I would be surprised if they neglected to perform accelerated life tests and research the likely usage patterns and environment.
When will the dimwits that moan about forum English stop wasting post space and everyones time. As usual the moaning posts are full of mistakes as well. English grammar and spelling are not fixed it is a continously evolving language.
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Debbster
7/23/2008 1:59 AM EDT
Is this the Twilight Zone? Engineers discussing spelling and grammar?
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