From design to wafer
After GPU design, the product goes through physical implementation, timing closure, power analysis, design for manufacturing, mask creation, and wafer starts. Large GPUs approach reticle-area limits, so the probability that a defect lands in active circuitry is higher. Redundancy, testability, partitioning, and yield models become design-time concerns.
From die to packaged system
The flow is not finished when wafer sort identifies usable logic dies. The logic die must be assembled with multiple HBM stacks, an interposer, substrate, capacitors, power paths, and thermal structures. Package-level testing verifies memory links, die-to-die links, power, temperature, and stability.
Why advanced GPUs are hard to ship
Advanced GPU supply is constrained by several stages at once: leading-edge logic capacity, HBM supply, CoWoS-like packaging capacity, substrates, test time, thermal materials, and system assembly. A shortage in any one stage can limit final accelerator-card or server shipments.