E: What do we care in the end it is gross margins,sales, and $ brought down to the bottom line and cash generated. The rest is all friction and entropy.JFD
Of course it is John, but Yield, and GDPW does directly affect $ brought down to the bottom line. The reason is, wafer cost vs. $ generated. Regardless of whether you are making a Northwood, a Tualatin, or even a Madison, it costs about the same amount to produce a wafer on a specific process, say, 0.13u. The greater number of good die per wafer, the greater the "payback" on the manufacturing costs. While overall wafer manufacturing costs are always shrinking due to process improvements (you're welcome), an equally important goal of Process Engineering, is to also improve yield, and thereby increase the payback, and thereby increasing gross margins.
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