﻿ Microsoft is not alone in chip woes | ZDNet  Microsoft is not
alone in chip woes   Recently, Microsoft's problem with the
Xbox's infamous Red Ring Of Death resulted in a billion-dollar
bill. The consoles just died after a while; an issue that seemed
to be linked to heat, but the company was reluctant to disclose
exactly what.  Now we know — the graphics chip, designed in-
house, chronically overheated and eventually gave up the ghost.
It can seem hard to believe that a company with so many
resources can make such an expensive mistake. Yet in electronics
design, there is no shortage of hidden problems that can elude
every reasonable effort to find them before launch. Chip design
is not the exact science you might imagine.  I've been there
myself. Here's how it can go wrong. In the late 1980s, I worked
for a small company with big ambitions. We started off by
building a cheap PC network — non-standard, but built around a
few low-cost off-the-shelf chips used in an ingenious way. That
sold well enough that it