Nvidia addresses significant Blackwell yield issues, production ramps in Q4

On Wednesday, Nvidia admitted that its upcoming Blackwell -based products suffer from low yields , which required the company to re-spin some layers of the B200 processor to improve yields. Nvidia will ramp up production of Blackwell in Q4 2024 and will ship Blackwell GPUs worth several billion dollars in the last quarter of this year.

"We executed a change to the Blackwell GPU mask to improve production yield," a statement by Nvidia reads. "Blackwell production ramp is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter and continue into fiscal 2026. In the fourth quarter, we expect to ship several billion dollars in Blackwell revenue."

Nvidia reaffirmed that it sampled Blackwell GPUs with its customers in the second quarter but admitted that it had to produce 'low-yielding Blackwell material' to meet demand for its Blackwell processors, which impacted its gross margins.

Nvidia's chief executive, Jensen Huang, said during the earnings call that the company has implemented all the necessary changes to the design of its Blackwell B100 and B200 GPUs and is on track to mass produce them in the fourth quarter.

Earlier, it was reported that Nvidia's B100 and B200 GPUs are the first processors to use TSMC's CoWoS-L packaging, which connects chiplets using an RDL interposer with local silicon interconnect (LSI) bridges that enable a transfer rate of around 10 TB/s. These bridges must be placed precisely. However, an alleged mismatch in the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) among the GPU chiplets, LSI bridges, RDL interposer, and motherboard substrate led to warping and system failure. According to reports, Nvidia had to redesign the GPU silicon's top metal layers and bumps to improve yields. However, the company didn't provide details on the fix — instead, it simply said it had to create new masks.

Nvidia says that no functional changes to Blackwell silicon were required, so all changes were made to improve yields and ensure a steady supply of B100 and B200 GPUs.

It is hard to tell how many Blackwell GPUs Nvidia will ship in the fourth quarter of 2024. Keeping in mind that Nvidia is rumored to charge around $70,000 per module (keep in mind that pricing of data center hardware depends on volumes and demand, so take this number with a grain of salt), and the fact that Nvidia expects to post 'several billion dollars in Blackwell revenue' (i.e., more than $2 billion, but less than $10 billion) in Q4 2024, it's clear that the company will ship a substantial number of chips in the final quarter of this year. Naturally, the company won't disclose its actual shipment volumes.