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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.
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.
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.
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.
Okay, I thought I'd sit back and moderate on this one, but I'm already tired of reading the garbage.
Ever wonder why Intel's not been cranking out Prescott cored processors that run even faster/hotter? Is it because they couldn't just bolt a jet engine and a copper block to the thing and ship it? No. It's because they're shifting their attention (once again).
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.
Now, lets look at other moves Intel's made lately. They've announced they're going to a PR-rating for selling processors. What sense does this make if they're just going to ramp up their processors even faster clockwise? Why do they need to compare anything except clocks? Well, because AMD is wiping the floor with them, that's why.
90nm technology has also been undergoing perfection with Prescott, meaning lower voltages, higher yields, less wasted silicion on the wafer.
Both of these things bring us to the sucecssor to Banias, Dothan. Extremely large cache, 90nm technology, extremely fast CPU. Not only will this be one of the most (energy effecient/clock effecient) chips ever made, it most likely will be the next desktop processor. But, here's the kicker, for them to be able to do this, they need to take a short pause from ramping up their current technology's speed, and moving Dothan over to a bigger mass production line. This is why we find Intel pretty silent right now, and most likely the same with AMD (anticipation; AMD's a very reactionary company).
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.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
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
actually, they are required to do this if they intend to keep selling chips in europe and japan. a recent group of laws in the EU (or is it some individual EU countries, i'm not sure) and Japan require that consumer electronics be nearly lead-free, both in the final product and in the manufacturing process. this includes PCB's and integrated circuits. most manufacturing operations, and any electronics makers that want to do business outside of north america, have been transitioning to lead-free products recently.
intel is meeting its upcoming legal requirements. the real win here (for intel), is turning something they are legally obligated to do into an "environmentally friendly" pr victory. the news media seems to be eating it up.
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
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.
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!
Quite the contrary. AMD has introduced the X+ rating for that reason. The problem is totally self-made. They've developed a design which has a better performance (Banias/Dothan...) at even lower clock speed. Now they have a problem to place that chip against its own products.
To clarify (and make sure I'm understanding correctly), Intel's "more MHz/GHz is better" marketing approach is presenting a problem to even themselves, much like it did for AMD a couple of years ago. Now that Intel is making more effecient (work done per-clock) processors, like AMD has been doing, simply comparing MHz among even just Intel processors is no longer a good performance measure, and might even make their new line appear slower (again, when comparing only clock-speed numbers).
It sounds like they're taking a step back from the P4 design, which were slower clock for clock than even their older (PIII) processors, but capable of higher clock speeds; so at the time the MHz myth worked to their advantage, where now it is no longer to their advantage.
That, and the market (in my opinion) isn't as speed-hungry as it was just a year ago. A quieter, smaller, more energy-efficient PC design is more likely to make the average user upgrade than a faster, beefier PC. Computers are "fast enough" for most people's needs (most of the time even for myself, a programmer and FPS game player).
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
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!
AMD has been working on going lead free for a while (apparently since 2001).
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