Speaking with Electronic News’s Ed Sperling, Tom Reeves, vice president of semiconductor and technology services for IBM, said that defects are a huge problem with the Cell processor chip, which is one of the major components of the PlayStation 3.

”It becomes a bigger problem the bigger the chip is,” he says. “With chips that are one-by-one and silicon germanium, we can get yields of 95 percent. With a chip like the Cell processor, you’re lucky to get 10 or 20 percent.”

Reeves also says that if more than one of the eight cores on the Cell processor should be blown during use, that’s it for the system. “If it’s within warranty, you send it back. If it’s not, your game doesn’t work anymore.”

Source: Electronic News