What does it mean to "Improve Yields"?

Question

I've seen many instances of manufacturers disabling certain parts of their products to "Improve Yields".

One recent example is Sony disabling a part of its new Cell Chip in the Playstation 3 console.

How does this work and what impact does it have on me?

Answer 1

Modern computer chips (microprocessors) have many sub modules within each chip. Not all of the modules are necessary for the chip to work (current chip designs have a lot of redundancy built in).

Chips are etched (essentially "stamped") onto a silicon wafer. Lets say 100 chips can be made from one wafer. However, not all chips work in its entirety. But a chip can still function quite effectively without all of the modeules working. By disabling redundant or unnecessary defective parts of a chip, the chip can still be used. Assuming 20 chips have defects but 15 of the 20 chips have non-critical defects, those 15 chips can be salvaged. Yield from that one wafer goes from 80% (80 good chips out of 100) to 95% (80 good chips plus 15 salvagable chips = 95 usuable chips out of 100) .

In the above example, the yield from the one wafer has improved from 80% to 95%.

This process of improving yields should not have an impact on you since the resulting chips undergo rigorous testing prior to incorporation into the consumer electronic device, such as your PlayStation.

Answer 2

any thing you can improve on to increase sales.. or to grow better crops than last year...

in other words means to increase.