Glossary term
Yield (Semiconductor)
The percentage of usable chips from a wafer; falls with each new node and gates how quickly new processes scale.
Yield is the percentage of usable, defect-free chips produced from a wafer. It falls sharply at the introduction of each new process node and improves as the process matures, which is why early-node products are scarce and expensive. Yield is the gating factor on how fast a foundry can ramp a new process and a primary driver of per-chip cost. See Foundry Economics 101.