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Intel To Make A Greener Microprocessor
crem_d_genes writes "According to the San Jose Mercury News, Intel is planning microprocessors that have a reduced amount of lead in them (reportedly 95% lower). It's about time a company started this - good job - and let's hope other tech companies take the hint. While many places in the US have banned the disposal of computer parts, there have been unintended consequences of the eco-friendly laws. Many 'recycled' computers currently get shipped overseas where parts eventually make their ways into the hands of workers who usually 'burn' the parts to get rid of plastic and recover small amounts of valuable metals. In the process they are exposed to the toxic compounds that are released. In other cases, lead makes its way into drinking water."
Superman will now be able to see what's going on inside my CPU?
Haha, just kidding, I own an AMD.
Excellent idea.
Next step: reduce power consumption.
Good job, now I can scrounge around dumps for old components!
Hmm.. It seems Intel wants to bolster their image as of late. I guess AMD has them shaking in their boots.
A Fatal OE Exception has occurred, Sig will now reboot.
Why does x86 processors consume so much power? What is it about other processors like powerpc and transmeta that makes it more energy friendly?
Activists United
does that mean my processors wont taste like candy anymore? I guess Ill have to go back to eating the paint I chip off my walls.
Scrame: Sunglasses are for assholes.
There not doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. Some countries (Japan) are phasing in laws that chips be made lead free. Otherwise, the can't be sold there. A Pb-free chip only cost 1-3 dollars more than otherwise in my experience... (consumer electronics ASICs)
Uhh, is the editor talking about the same company that requires 103W for the latest and greatest processor they have to offer?
many places in the US have banned the disposal of computer parts
What are we supposed to do with our old computers, a beowulf cluster?
I'm wondering what would happen if all manufacturers of electronic equipment were required to provide a 5-year warranty on all their products. Anyone think it would reduce the amount of cheap electronic stuff that ends up in the garbage after a week and contributes to pollution?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Quote from the article:
"The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker, the world's biggest, said it is working with the rest of the industry to remove the remaining amount of lead that's needed to connect the processor's core with its packaging."
I read this and think solder. Anyone know what else they would use?
/uses lead as a paperweight
If you think that even a 95% decrease in the lead in the microprocessor would have as much as 0.1% impact on the amount of lead in a desktop computer, think again! The lead in the solder on the boards and in the power supply is a far greater factor than the very small amount of lead in a CPU. Sure, you can say "any decrease is an improvement", and maybe it even really is (that depends an awful lot on what the lead is replaced with though), but don't let let yourself be fooled by someone pointing at the CPU and calling attention to it while the Intel chip is not the real problem.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
With the amount of heat the chips give off, you can keep entire rooms warm. My p4 3.2ghz keeps my office warm when its cold. I also have a 1.2ghz p4 sitting next to it but that doesnt give off much heat. Just a thought.
95% lower... Is there really a lot of lead in microprocessors, or is it just marketing?
Question:
Intel to Reduce Chips' Lead Content ?
Answer:
For environmental reasons, Intel Corp. plans to reduce the amount of lead in its microprocessors and chip sets by 95 percent starting this year.
Real Answer:
A European Union directive requires manufacturers to ban the use of six specified hazardous substances, including lead, after July 2006
My question:
So how much of lead is there actually in a microprocessor/flash? 95% reduction is great, but without an actual number a comparison is pointless.
-- everyones not everybody and neither is everybody like everyone.
In the process they are exposed to the toxic compounds that are released. In other cases, lead makes its way into drinking water.
Perhaps the older parts could be given (or sold!) to any number of Islamic countries that foster a "idiots-with-guns" mentality. Eventually... no more terrorists.!
"Hardware is only as old as the SW it runs"
You can and should make "old" PCs new again with projects like RULE (temporarily on idle, will come back for Fedora Core 2)
Now I've never cracked open a monitor so I don't know if they really contain 8 lbs of lead, but where is all this lead in a PC? The entire motherboard can't weigh more than a pound or two so that's not it. The case? No, that's sheet metal. Is it in the hard drive? Average mid-tower PC probably doesn't weigh much more than 8 lbs total so I can't imagine where all this lead is at.
Also monitors are rarely thrown out. I've gone through about half a dozen PCs but kept the same monitor. They're just too freaking useful, even old 14" monitors are great for a second PC and still easily sell on eBay. Are these broken monitors people are tossing out?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Thumbs up, Intel!
Lesser power consumption, better optimizing compilers, new technology in place of the older x86 and creating more jobs are still in your list... don't forget it!
I myself have doubts they are doing this only because of environmental reasons..., but nevertheless it is a step in the right direction.
Ist This is Intel, so we are talking only about the processor and other chips, not the whole machine? Vast majority of lead is soldering to the motherboard and other printed circuits - outside Intel's control.
2nd You won't stop 3rd world countries trying to kill themselves. A colleague of mine once worked for a crane company who sold to India, among other places. He went out there to check the new installation of a new crane once and found they had removed all the hand rails around ladders and platforms etc and sold them for scrap! You cannot impose western standards on these places.
3rd Not just 3rd world countries. I work as a safety engineer and anyone, even supposedly "sensible" workers within my own industry (they have to pass various aptitude tests here), have limitless imagination in devising new ways to try to kill themselves. Only constant monitoring and supervision stops them from doing so. We can only leave 3rd world countries to regulate themselves.
4th Sounds like a publicity gesture by Intel to me. "Lead" is one of those trigger words which switches people into self-righteous mode. These gestures always seem to work - even among people of above average knowledge and intelligence. Just watch the posters here for example.
Now, where's that asbestos suit.
Read the title for your reduced power consumption chips, which should be hitting the desktop within a few months or so. Banias is just wiping the floors with any competitors battery-life and speed wise, and their greatest competitor is actually themselves; those god awful Celeron notebooks with 30 minute battery lifes. But what's cheap usually outsells what's new.
I fully believe that Pentium V (Pentium 5, whichever they choose to call it), will be Dothan, introducing to the desktop for the first time a power-saving logic. Not only does this make sense for quieter, smaller computing (two of the biggest buzzfactors on the market right now; those micro cases and motherboards are selling like wildfire), it makes for cheaper, faster computing. I believe that the cluncky Pentium 4M will be dropped altogether, and the Pentium 4 technology (Tejas, the last NetBurst Archetecture chip I know of) will be integrated into the Xeon line to run head on verses the AMD64 chips (hince, the reason they're adding in the x86-64 extensions to that processor).
Long Live P6
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
There always is a risk that first generations of such environmentally-friendly products have some kind of malfunction, and need to be returned and replaced. This has happened in several cases, including in the semiconductor industry.
Probably the dump of failed environmentally-friendly but useless products damages the environment more than the originally replaced product.
I would wait for the second generation of such a processor before buying it myself or recommending to buy a lot of them at work. For me, the amount of lead that could be in a single processor and could be saved in the next, is not worth the risk of having it fail.
It really is. On many levels modern chip production is horrendously bad for the environment. It's a little known fact but pure silicon doesn't exist naturally on earth, it's a multistep process with some really nasty chemicals to produce it. Lithography is again a multistep process with some truly nasty chemical waste including some strong acids. The machines used to "dope" silicon to produce p/n junctions are often sold off cheep to hobbiests because of the large costs associated with cleaning and recycling them. If you find one don't take it, often they explode if opened. Then let's not forget that the next gen P4 is slotted to run, at what, 150 watts?
Oh, but wait, atleast now there'll be a quarter gram less lead in my computer.
Most people have all the computing power they need. It's time more people worry less about clock speed and more about their electric bills and what happens to all those chemicals after Intel's done with them. Cheers.
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
The announcement is just PR!
I'm not denying that the lead reduction is real. It is real.
But this isn't anything unique to Intel, and it isn't done out of the goodness of their green little hearts.
Every IC manufacturer, in fact practically every manufacturer of anything electronic, is already investigating lead reduction or elimination at some level or other. Not all are making a public hoopla about it, though.
Lead free solder requires the development of new alloys and new processes. The changeover isn't trivial, but some promissing candidates exist. Typically they have very high tin content, plus some mix of Silver, Copper, and Antimony.
There are several reasons for this trend: Regulatory changes (pending in the US, and I think already passed in Europe?), Liability/Insurance cost (employee lawsuits), and waste treatment cost, including waste water.
My opinion: I don't beleive lead in electronics will ever be totally eliminated, nor outright outlawed. I'm no solder/process expert, but those I know tell me that leadless soldering presents many challenges. More likely in my opinion, regulations will take the form of taxes and fees on lead content, driving manufacturers to use it only where no good alternative exists.
I suspect this is related to the EU directive.
I work for a European Semiconductor company, and have some involvement in our drive to be lead free, so i know a little about this.
Lead is used in the lead frame of the chip, as the coating to make it solderable, and also in some BGA packages as the balls. Pb is not used in the actual chip manufacture.
There are alternatives to Pb, but normally they require higher temperatures for soldering, which have an impact on the package thermal characteristics and material, which in turn may have some influence on the performance of the chip itself, so these changes have to be handled carefully.
At the moment the US does not have a deadline for phasing out Pb (I think they refused to sign up?) but the EU does, so if Intel wants to sell chips in the EU, or Japan, they have to provide Pb free alternatives.
One person mentioned that this is a small percentage compared to the rest of the Pb in a PC - which comes from the solder mainly, but what you should remember is that the EU directive applies to ALL Pb products, and therefore all circuit boards will be Pb free too.
It's only in the US that you might get a Pb free chip, with no reduction in the ammount of Pb in the rest of the machine.
This is a lot of work for a lot of people. It's not a small change, and all companies have to do this, not just Intel.
Lets see - the lead ore is in a toxic lead oxide form - smelted into metallic lead (much safer) - Now it is baned from burying it again??
Too many idiots in this country that think they know science when they are really just confused by some activists statistics.
The "*ell" with it - I'm going up stairs to sleep with my wife - and I will completely ignore the fact that the potassium in her body exposes me to some extra radiation. - Good night!
In some places, a deposit is required for disposable goods, usually things like soda / water / beer bottles / cans / jugs / whatever what have you. There was a time when it was the norm to provide reuseable containers made out of glass, which gets reused but this is no long the fasion. Simply put, it's more cost effective let the consumer junk that bottle, and not worry about the cost of disposal. This keeps prices down and everyone's happy.
If manufacturers actually took into account the cost of disposal, it would likely raise prices but could have the benifit of actually not making its way into landfills. The design can actually in theory take into account the fact that all materials used be recovered. Unforunatly I can't see this happening anytime soon.
Since 2000 I've gone though the following CPUs
Pentium 166
pentium 200
AMD k6-3 400
Pentium III 500 [motherboard change]
Pentium III 733
AMD athlon 1700xp (motherboard change]
I have found homes for all the the above... but pretty damn soon they will reach end of life and no bugger would want them anymore. Chances are it'll just end up in a landfill at such time.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Many have already written that the lead is in the glass of the CRT. If I'm not mistaken, lead is added to glass to improve it's clarity.
However, the lead in the soldering alloy is significant, too: the so-called "eutectic" alloy contains 37 to 40 % lead and the rest is tin (Sn).
Eutectic alloys have a lower melting point than any of it's components. That's exactly the reason why lead is added to tin, in soldering alloys.
Another very efficient dopant is silver - it decreases considerably the melting point. Unfortunately, it's expensive.
Tin is basicly innocuous, while lead is toxic. The problem with lead is that it causes a chronic poisoning called saturnism, where your brain suffers considerable damage - in fact, largely unrecoverable.
I should add here that there are historians that think one reason for the fall of the roman empire lies in the use of lead cups for drinking wine. These lead cups were quite popular in the roman army, and it's not inconceivable that this might have decreased the soldier's mental and physical abilities.
The problem with the lead-free soldering technologies is exactly the higher melting temperature of pure tin compared to the eutectic alloys. Reflow and other technologies have to be fine-tuned for higher temperatures, and the risk of damaging some of the components is significantly higher. I, for one, prefere much more to use normal, eutectic alloy for my hobby work.
Sigged!
it might look like an AMD processor :)
--------
WAP hosting
Some twenty years ago, my friend and I we made some about a kilogram of pure gold from computer parts by dirty and costly chemical work, mainly from russian mainframe parts (remember "Minsk" anyone?). One russian card contained 10x more gold than japanese memory card or french connector mainly because of thickness, western parts are practically of no use.
The problem with the pure gold was it was contaminated with about 0.9% of mix of platinum and iridium so it was much harder then normal soft pure gold. It was not usable for local dentist nor for making jewellery.
We did not find any usable process how to separate platinum and/or iridium from the gold, so the only practical purpose of the pure gold was.. a magic stick.
There you are, staring at me again.
If you used text-to-speech software you'd never know that the poster writes like a third grader. :)
Seriously, is using the right word so damn hard? Or should we forget all this written English nonsense and just post links to mp3s of us saying our comments, since nobody can seem to remember the definitions of the dozen or so commonly used words that sound or are spelled similarly? It's not like learning that "their" and "they're" (or "lose" and "loose, or "your" and "you're", or "to" and "too", etc...) are two completely different words is that hard... You probably spent more effort installing whatever OS you're running than it'd take to learn this little bit of grammar that makes it a hell of a lot easier to understand what you're trying to say.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62851,00 .html?tw=wn_tophead_1
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I am very concious of the eco damage caused by my computer habit- not that less PB makes much difference in the light of manufacturing techniques.
Lead is expensiv and if you make chips by the truckload there is significant savings to be made on logistics.
But if by some quirk of fate, Intel actually start to givashit I may actually pay a little more for an Intel.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
It's a quagmire.
Reservists are being killed. Rumfeld wants to keep the troops that are there now even longer.
SUPPORT THE TROOPS! Toss out Bush - bring them HOME.
(Policticians love to say that a comparison with Viet Nam is "dangerous". Yes, it is - for the ones that sent us into Iraq.)
I don't know why the submitter/editor put quotes around burn; there is nothing metaphorical about this. The parts are burnt in a fire to get rid of plastic coating from wires, etc, to make separation of copper and other metals easier.
Coincidentally, just this week a Japanese customer of ours asked us to modify our firmware on our embedded device to support a different flash chip because the only one we currently support uses lead. We happily oblidged. So Intel definitely isn't the only company out there trying to be more "green".
-David
There. Now go play some cool javascript games!
I have sent the following e-Mail to the writer of the article which has caused the nonsensical notion that a PC contains up to 8lb of lead (see link in parent), also making the point that lead is safe in glass :-
:-
e chnology.htm
:-
h tm
...... It turns out that the glass in a CRT contains a lot of lead. A big CRT can contain up to 5 pounds (2.2 kilograms) of lead."
Carole,
Your Web site
http://www.state.me.us/newsletter/may2003/toxic_t
has been Slashdotted. ie. it has been referenced in Slashdot, a technology news and discussion site
You are referenced because of this statement on your site :
"A typical computer processor and monitor contain five to eight pounds of lead, and other heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury and arsenic."
OK, I understand from
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question678.
that : "If you have ever tried picking up a 21-inch (53-cm) monitor or a 25-inch (or larger) TV, you know that all the glass in a large CRT can easily weigh more than 50 pounds (23 kg).
Firstly, it is clear that what they mean by "a big CRT" is a "25" (or larger) TV" - it is this which will contain up to 5lb of lead. A typical PC monitor is much smaller at say 17" and therefore will contain far less glass and and hence less lead than 5lb. The other lead in computers is of course the solder joints, which will amount to no more than perhaps a hundred grammes.
Secondly the fact that the lead is in the glass means that it is safe. Lead is only dangerous if you eat it or otherwise absorb it into the body, maybe by it getting into the ground and entering the food chain. But glass is the about the most stable common substance and the lead will remain safely locked in it, unless someone melts it down and for some reason uses high tech to extract the lead at very high temperatures. Therefore, lead is not going to enter the environment from the back garden in your photos, no matter how ugly the place looks.
Thus, the statements, while well meant, are untrue, and the implications of lead poisoning hazard from this source are misleading. If you take a look at the discussion on Slashdot I think you will see others putting this in less diplomatic terms than I am using. Not all people are not fools, even if some are, so I suggest you modify your wording. I am all for recyling, but let's base discussions on facts.
.. but what are they replacing the lead with? plutonium?
One day in class, the wacky department head at the engineering school I went to told us a little story from his youth. He said that while in chemistry class he discovered that if you dip a nickel (a 5 cent piece for international /.ers) into a pool of mercury it gets very shiny. And if you put it in your mouth, it tastes funny! That story definitely explained why the fellow was almost as mad as a hatter.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Foreigners have large litters to replace any losses incurred as a result of industrialisation.
AMD fanboys listen up: Yeah, you guys are winning the strongarm race right now. You've got the faster middle-class processor (upper end desktop/lower- to medium-end server) and Intel knows this quite well. They could scale Prescott very quickly up, but so would come heat, and therefore energy prices.
AMD has the faster high-end processors, too. I just ordered a high-end workstation for modeling and simulation at work. I chose a 64-bit AMD CPU both for the speed it gives now as well as for the future growth potential. Server guys are demaning AMDs and you'll probably even see the Intel-only Dell start offering AMD-based servers.
Intel has no concern about energy prices and the only reason that they care about heat is because they would need liquid nitrogen cooling to draw off the heat if their CPUs ran much hotter. Their other big concern about heat is that manufacturers can't create reliable 1U racks with CPUs that pull 100+ watts. There is also the issue of building power supplies which have amperages that approach those of arc-welders (yes, I know the voltage is not the same). And there is the issue of carrying that much current through PCB traces.
Now, lets look at other moves Intel's made lately. They've announced they're going to a PR-rating for selling processors.
But when AMD did that, Intel screamed that it was deceptive (which was, itself, ironic coming from a company selling GHZ specs to ignorant consumers).
So, I'm very sure that this is one of the top priorities sitting on the desks of Intel Engineers, I applaud them for taking every step towards a cleaner environment while making my newest tech gadgets.
I'll believe that Intel has an interest in the environment when they stop trying to convince consumers to throw their existing PCs into landfills and to upgrade to light-dimming 3GHZ P4s for websurfing on their AOL dial-up connections. I'll believe that Intel has an interest in the environment when their desktop chipsets have built-in CPU speed throttling to save power (do you think that you need a 3GHZ CPU for word processing?). All that Intel is doing now is complying with upcoming EU regulations regarding lead.
What I want to know is when they're going to develop a semiconductor manufacturing process that doesn't use massive amounts of water. If ind the fact that large amounts of water are used (to clean off chemicals, keep dust down/off the chips, etc.) especially ironic conisdering two of Intel's main facilities are in California and Arizona. This is an area that would have a much more significant impact on the environment, but it's not a regulatory requirement (yet...).
Things to do today: See list of things to do yesterday
Imagine that.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Actually it's not beta radiation (= electrons emitted by nuclei). The electrons emitted by the cathode and accelerated to 30+ kV do not penetrate the glass. They excite the screen to produce visible light and the undesireable byproduct is 30+ kV X-rays which have far greater penetrating power, hence the X-ray absorbing lead in the glass.
Semiconductor manufacturing is often an environmental disaster, due to the wierd chemicals and strong reagents used, in bulk, in the doping and etching processes.
The other popular alternative to silicon is Gallium Arsenide. Gosh, arsenic, another heavy metal with a place in the history of poisonings.
Lead, mercury, and arsenic are famous just because they're common on the earth and have been known since ancient times. All heavy metals accumulate int he body and cause problems, and I'm not sure that exotic ones are necessarily better.
I've never been sure that lead isn't being replaced with other metals equally bad. Maybe it is, but I've never seen an explanation of lead-free electronics that explains why the replacements are better, just that they don't contain the demon lead.
s/"during the utilization phase"/"during use"/g
Sometimes markets have to be regulated so they don't kill us.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Why the fuck should we care about a few miligrams of lead if the processor consumes 100W of power?
But will it affect leading zeroes?
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Well a green processor is nice, but considering a modern Pentium consumes between 90 and 15 watts of electricity at idle, they should be looking elsewhere.
AMD has been working on going lead free for a while (apparently since 2001).
My server
http://support.necsam.com/mobilesolutions/hardware /Desktops/eco/
Now compare the amount of lead in one's PC, versus the amount of lead in the average lead-acid car battery. Far more cars than PC's out there still.
I commend the effort, but there are many other environmental issues that need to be addressed as a society first.
In the process they are exposed to the toxic compounds that are released. In other cases, lead makes its way into drinking water.
;)
But now it won't get into OUR drinking water, and the lead in the water of the enemy means their babies will talk and walk slower, making them easier military targets when they grow up. This could be a nice long term strategy in our war on terrorism, and helps keep our streams and lakes lead free, too.
I fail to see the down side for us.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
The Blue Men Group changed colors and name to the Green Men Group to star the new series of Intel commercials.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
and let me just say PCB's don't cause problems. They allow unscrupulous ambulance chasing bastards to catalyze the suffering, birth defects, ruined enviroment, savings, livelyhood and deaths of others into fat paydays because Republicans are convinced the EPA is evil and should be condemed to the hell where they may only shuffle their own paperwork. Also they degrade nearly instantly in water, as opposed to concentrating in higher mammals like whales and humans causing a dizzing array of life and fertility threatening problems. Monsanto, I just want to say, if you'd like to fuck me in the ass, it's the least I can offer, and there's no need for a courtesy reach around between friends.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
It's about time a company started this - good job - and let's hope other tech companies take the hint.
Hello, wake up call. This is a major industry trend. Intel is following along. They're definately not the ones starting this, in hopes the rest of the industry will catch on. It is a European Union Directive that deserves the "good job" credit... and it is Intel and every other major manufacturer in the electronics industry that is "taking the hint".
Most new electronic components are being made with little or no lead. Major companies and contract manufacturers (who solder boards for most smaller companies) are switching to lead-free soldering processes.
Already this forum is filled with +5 comments about power consumption and how the solder contains much more lead than the chips. Well, here's the news... the whole industry is migrating to lead-free solder.
Much of the conversion is driven by an EU directive that all electronic products sold in Europe be lead-free by 2008.
Here's an EE Times Article about the trend, and a possibility that the deadline may be moved up to 2006.
I am an electrical engineer, and even at the US-based company where I used to work, they're having to go through the painful process of switching the wave solder and reflow ovens (surface mount soldering) to lead-free fluxes and solder alloys.
So give credit where credit is due. It's the European Union, not Intel, that deserves "good job". The whole industry is taking the hint, as selling or being able to sell in the EU is important to almost everybody.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Many many many embeded processors have been lead free for a while, or at least available in lead free versions...
It's also on news.com
(thx to [H]ardOCP)
but yea, it'll help reduce resistance as lead isn't that good of a conductor of electricity (nor heat) compared to other metals (silver, copper, aluminum).
Considering that the Prescotts can draw enough power to kill some motherboards, reducing power consumption is a good thing, as Prescotts have been reported as having really good "potential".
Added benefit of reducing resistance is the reduction in the propagantional delay of the gates, which translates to better clocks or the capability for better clocks as the gates aren't as slow.
The disadvantage is the added cost and time, and whether or not using leadfree solder changes failure ratios. Typically, leadfree solder melts at a slightly higher temperature. Higher temps may adversely affect the silicon or affect the equipment (assuming they aren't retrofitted to handle the new solder).
But if it can get the green monkeys off Intel's backs, it might help reduce costs overall.
As always, time will tell.
sry, bad url...
here's the updated one on news.com
I'm afraid you're confusing /dev/null with the trash /bin. You should be emptying the system /bin as well as the /users' /bin.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Besides building computer hardware with ecological awareness, there are also ways to use software this way. There are many tips and tricks to do so described in the Linux-Ecology-HOWTO, which is also available in Japanese.
Has anyone else see this? I'm thinking we need to use less plastic as well. Perhaps use more aluminum as it is easily recyclable and kids aren't asked to smell fumes to decide which pile the components go in.
I don't plan on worrying about how much lead there is inside a postage-stamp-sized patch of an apparatus that spends it's ENTIRE useful life on my desktop and then *might* get discarded into a big hole in the ground until someone does SOMETHING about all the two and three-inch long pieces of practically PURE lead riding around on (nearly) EACH and EVERY automobile wheel in America!!! These chunks of lead spend their ENTIRE useful life in DIRECT contact with "the environment" and practically NOBODY gives a rat's bunghole, but suddenly the amount of lead inside my computer's CPU is important? Somebody owes me a break!
You need the lead as an impurity for tin so you don't get tin whiskers. It is a very rare but real phenomenon. Scientists still don't know what causes tin whiskers but a little lead impedes their growth. It can also happen in zinc. I wonder what they are using to stop it without lead?
Stop the presses!!! Where's CNN? Where's Lou Dobbs when we need him the most???
One effect of eliminating lead is reducing the occurence of soft errors due to alpha particle emission. As the chips scale, the probability that an alpha particle (emitted from radioactive lead isotopes) generates a soft error increases. Is this Intel's way of promoting a positive side effect of a change they would be forced to make anyway?
I've actually worked on the problem. (I can't say who what why becuase of confidentiality concerns and I don't want my butt sued) Its more than just being nice to the environment. My bet is that the current (as in electricity) requirements also dictate that Pb is no longer good for holding current. I do know why they've kept Pb in for so long, but again I'm sure that info is still confidential and would reveal a great deal about the chip design.
Also think about this--Intel's newest 300mm manufacturing plant is in Ireland (Along with the NM plant and the Oregon RD facility which produces limited numbers of chips)--under EU rules. They need to get rid of the Pb now or face a lot of flak (aka money.....) from 50% of their most modern capacity.
Its not about the environment--its about the money!!
Fujitsu-Siemens now makes a line of high quality "Green Motherboards" for both P4 and AMD64. Their web site even explains the ISO standards used! http://www.fsc-america.com/html/green_edition.html
Fujitsu-Siemens motherboards are well known in Europe, and now they are comming to America. Don't expect to be able to just pick one up at Fry's (etc) just yet. Their web site shows where you can buy one.
What's wrong with lead?
Nothing.
"1U rack-mount servers" you mean? The problem with such power densitty is exactly that. Supplying a standard rack with enough juice and cooling to fill all the units, or even half of them, is a challange, and very few hosting centers were built to supply it.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
"1U rack-mount servers" you mean?
Yes. The folks I hang out with refer to them as "racks" for short, as in 1U racks, 2U racks, etc., although that's probably a term better saved for waitresses at Hooters.
The problem with such power densitty is exactly that. Supplying a standard rack with enough juice and cooling to fill all the units, or even half of them, is a challange, and very few hosting centers were built to supply it.
It's a survival of the fittest world in the co-lo facilities. Dell, a company known for building civilized, quiet desktop PCs, puts fans that are so loud in servers that they would make the average fighter jock cringe. It's not that they need that in a normal world, but when they are breathing hot air exhausted by all of the other systems in the co-lo facility, they need every advantage that they can get.
I really wonder how long it will be before the PC manufacturers standardize fittings for liquid cooling so that each rack server has a liquid in and a liquid out line for cooling. They can't keep doing all of the cooling with air and high-speed fans. It's just not going to scale as processors get more power-hungry.