Xbox 720 Could Be Delayed by Manufacturing Trouble ‘Oban’ processor reportedly facing shortages

Rumors suggest that manufacturing trouble could delay Microsoft’s next Xbox. According to tech site SemiAccurate,
the ‘Oban’ processor that powers the system is facing shortages that
could prevent Microsoft from manufacturing enough consoles for the oft-rumored 2013 launch.

SemiAccurate reports that manufacturing yields on the new processor’s production wafers are “painfully low.” As explained by OXM,
that means ”for every wafer, or sheet of silicon chips, created, only a
tiny percentage are actually usable. Think of it like a sheet of
baseball cards. If one sheet makes 30 cards, but only one card comes out
without any issues or defects, that's a bit of a problem." Microsoft
has reportedly increased Oban manufacturing to “very high quanitities”
that SemiAccurate notes are “too high by more than an order of magnitude
to simply be for dev kits.”

Microsoft will reportedly try to get parts from two or even three
sources in order to increase its odds of success, but SemiAccurate
reports that Microsoft doesn’t have long to set things right if it wants
to hit a target date of fall 2013. “It takes about 8 weeks to run a hot
lot through a fab and analyze the results,” the site notes. “If
production wafers are really going in this year, the last time a foundry
can run a test wafer is about November 1. Anything after that day will
not come out of the fab in time for the results to be fed back in to the
production chips. That is the technical term for ‘The XBox Next is
going to be delayed.’”


Anonymous sources suggest to SemiAccurate that there’s “some slack”
in Microsoft’s production schedule, and that even a six to eight week
delay wouldn’t be enough to push back the next Xbox’s launch. “Microsoft
insiders tell us that the planned launch date is September 2013, and
that is not changing without heads rolling internally,” SemiAccurate
writes. “Given the very hard limits imposed by the fab technologies
involved and the self-imposed start date, time is running out. If there
is two months of slack in the supply chain, unless the yield problems
are solved by late February 2013, Microsoft can’t hit its desired
September 2013 launch date.”

We heard in January that the Xbox 720 chipset was already in production, though the first run may have simply been for the development kits that are already being distributed. IGN sources suggested in the past that the next Xbox will be six times more powerful than current generation consoles.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft about the rumored manufacturing delays
and will update with any comment we receive, though given Microsoft’s reluctance to mention the new Xbox, it’s unlikely we’ll hear any additional information. For now, read what we know about the next Xbox so far thanks to a Microsoft patent from earlier this summer.

sad face.