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Is the fact that Intel is testing the market for this a sign of fabrication processes having improved to the point where yields have outgrown the binning proces
by mortenjorck 16y ago
Is the fact that Intel is testing the market for this a sign of fabrication processes having improved to the point where yields have outgrown the binning process?
Then again, here's a thought: This test marketing is being done with ancient-architecture Pentium chips. Perhaps this is a consequence of fabricating these chips with less-dense architectures on equipment built for the tolerances required by the latest generation. I don't know enough about the process to say for sure, but I could imagine this resulting in a significant improvement in yields compared to the Pentium's heyday (or to Core i7 chips today).
- bitwize 16y agoThese chips are not "ancient architecture" Pentiums. It's because Intel branding is fucking insane. For example, the Core i3, i5, and i7 names are meaningless, except to vaguely suggest increasing performance: some low-power-draw i5 chips are put into laptops and given an i7 label. As for this CPU, recently Intel revived the Pentium name and positioned it as a low-performance chip positioned about midway between the Celeron line and the Core i3 line.
- wisty 16y agoNow Pentium can be a low-end i3. Intel doesn't want people to really compare which chip they are buying. They just want people to feel dirty for buying low-end chips.
- robk 16y agoAbsolutely - the binning process is 100% commercially driven now. Yields are so high there's no need for this from a yield-management perspective.