Even the big guys screw up sometimes.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4143/the-source-of-intels-cougar-point-sata-bug

Up to a 700 million charge on earnings, ouch.

 

They even get the firmware wrong, remember this one? - http://www.informationweek.com/509/06iuin.htm;jsessionid=AL5PAYOM0B1W3QE1GHPCKHWATMY32JVN

 

They even get the firmware wrong, remember this one? - http://www.informationweek.com/509/06iuin.htm;jsessionid=AL5PAYOM0B1W3QE1GHPCKHWATMY32JVN

That bug is a good part of the reason that Cyrix/AMD are competitors in the market today.

 

That bug is a good part of the reason that Cyrix/AMD are competitors in the market today.

That and the fact that bid daddy IBM forced Intel to cross-license the chips to AMD so they could second source CPUs for the original PC.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/8088/MANUF-AMD.html

 

Intel buyers must beware with this news. The recall could have big effect to intel financially. Intel launched a recall Monday of the company's brand new Sandy Bridge computer chip. A glitch in the platform overlooked in tests was uncovered that is expected to eventually break down Sandy Bridge performance. The Sandy Bridge Intel recall is estimated to carry a $1 billion price tag and presents Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices an edge for its competing chip set.

 

I am seriously waiting for the Bulldozer to be released. The Zacate and Ontario chips for the mobile platform were awesome and Fusion seems to be working towards AMD's favour.
Anyway, I was a huge fan of the Phenom II series. Then the Sandy Bridge came and I was highly impressed. Guess, if there is a bug there, it's a huge problem, so the performance improvement is hampered.

 

That and the fact that bid daddy IBM forced Intel to cross-license the chips to AMD so they could second source CPUs for the original PC.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/8088/MANUF-AMD.html

That is what got them into the game.

The pentium bug got them propelled to "mainstream"

Then being the first with dual core cpus and 64 bit cpus has them where they are.

Both AMD and Intel are essentially "stuck" at the 3.5GHz limit right now, which is why only extra cores have been added, and no new/higher clocked processors have come about. The focus has switched more on the chipset, for more memory and peripheral bandwidth.

 

The FP bug was way overblown. The F00F bug was a lot worse at the OS level.
http://www.rcollins.org/Errata/Dec97/F00FBug.html

I would say that 3.5GHz is the limit at which they can get good yields with the current process tools. They both have designs that will go much faster but can only build them on a wafer to wafer basis in an R&D fab now. In a few years Intel's new fabs should be able to mass produce them.

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4211367/Intel-confirms-450-mm-fab-plans
http://newsroom.intel.com/community...stment-in-next-generation-manufacturing-in-us

 

In a few years Intel's new fabs should be able to mass produce them.

A few years in computer tech time is eternity (by moore's law). In 2 years hard drive capacities double, graphics ability doubles, etc. Unless running 64 bit Win 7 or 64 bit *nix, a lot of the advances aren't really "visible" to the end user, as they require running in native 64 bit mode for memory access. The latest edition of Adobe Suite needs 64 bit OS for their video editing program to even install.

That's the reason I used the term 'wall'. I'm sure it will be surmounted, but the time it takes to set up a finer process and fab plant for the process is quite a bit longer than it used to be.

The previous "wall" was around the 300Mhz speed, which they solved by double/quad clocking the CPU and RAM, and leaving the rest of the board run at the lower frequencies. It took a great deal of PCB/Motherboard layout and fab advancement to get external signals past 300Mhz, and it's something they are still struggling with. Remember the 486/33 Motherboards? They were practically the size of a newspaper!

 

The current wall is cost and return on investment. There is not a impossible process or design problem to 10nm (The theory is 6-8nm is where quantum physics makes it impossible to shrink current technology) 10Ghz chips without special cooling. Some of my buddies from the dark side say they have running prototype chips already.

I would love to pop one those bad boys into a system I use for editing HD video with Sony Vegas, it makes even my quad core 64bit system run like a dog.