360 product recall explained

The reason behind Xbox 360’s product recall may have finally been fully explained.

Speaking at the Design Automation Conference in California this week, Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, said that the problem started in a graphic chip.

According to the EE Times, Microsoft designed the graphic chip on its own, cut a traditional ASIC vendor out of the process and went straight to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd – a move to save millions of dollars.

Lewis added that to fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip.

"Had Microsoft left the graphics processor design to an ASIC vendor in the first place, would they have been able to avoid this problem?” asked Lewis.

"Probably. The ASIC vendor could have been able to design a graphics processor that dissipates much less power."

Microsoft did not respond to requests from the EE Times’ to comment on the story.