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Intel's 45nm Patch Machinery Exposed

Posted by kdawson on from the tick-and-tock dept.

Roboticles writes "Tweakers.net paid a visit to Intel's laboratories in the California town of Folsom, the birthplace of the 45nm CPU. We spoke to lead architect Stephen Fisher about the development of the Penryn chip and the day the first A0 version arrived. We were shown the machinery used to test and patch the 45nm processor, which is currently being manufactured in Arizona for release next month."

78 comments

  1. Need a magnifying glass by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 3, Funny

    You need a magnifying glass to view the machinary, its REALLY small.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
    1. Re:Need a magnifying glass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      I need one to piss...

    2. Re:Need a magnifying glass by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Funny

      Speak for yourself. Maybe your machinery is really small!

      --
      My blog
    3. Re:Need a magnifying glass by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      Is the machinery being released, or the new chip architecture? I had trouble to understand.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
  2. TickTock by WPIDalamar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought the "TickTock" process of developing a technology two different ways was a really neat innovation. Few businesses would dare double their research just to reduce their risks. I wonder if a similar method is used in other industries.

    Imagine if Microsoft did it? Maybe we wouldn't end up with things like ME or Vista :)

    I wonder if there's a competitive spirit between the teams.

    1. Re:TickTock by eniac42 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Windows-ME *was* a sort of Microsoft "Tick-Tock" (annoying-new-buzzword) development - They had the Conservative development line (Win 95-98-ME) and the "New Tech" team for (NT3,NT3.5,NT4,NT2K,XP,Vista)..

      Unfortunately ME development was hindered by the "Ballmer Peak".. http://xkcd.com/323/

      As a side thought, how far does light travel between clocks at 7Ghz? I make it about 4cm..

      --
      "A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it." - Churchill
    2. Re:TickTock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft do use a variant of this approach; Apple tick, Microsoft tock!

    3. Re:TickTock by asliarun · · Score: 1

      Few businesses would dare double their research just to reduce their risks. It's a matter of affordability, and Intel can afford to have two rival design teams working in parallel on the same project. While this strategy proves to be a hedge on a risky bet, it has its disadvantages. Firstly, the design team can tend to slack off as it realizes that failure will not mean the death of the company. Secondly, they end up competing with each other instead of the competition, which can lead to some unhealthy internal politics, and it DOES! Intel managed to rise above the internal backbiting and politicking ONLY because AMD was whupping them in the NetBurst daze and it became a do or die situation.

      thought the "TickTock" process of developing a technology two different ways was a really neat innovation. Having said that, the TickTock strategy only ensures that major design changes do not overlap with process upgrades. It has nothing to do with having multiple design teams.
    4. Re:TickTock by kylegordon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Personally I'd have considered the 9X and ME teams to be the new technology folks, and the NT teams to be the conservative lot. Give how NT had to be the stable, business orientated one. Look at how long it took for DirectX to be supported on the NT platform. Games on NT? Sure... We all know BillG said NT stands for New Technology, but that was purely a marketing term. Underneath it really is the home user that gets the raw end of the deal when it comes to trying out new technologies.

    5. Re:TickTock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine if Microsoft did it? Maybe we wouldn't end up with things like ME or Vista :)

      But Microsoft has done this in the past. That's how we ended up with Outlook and Outlook Express - two email clients that have little to do with each other aside from similar names.

    6. Re:TickTock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "tick" and the "tock" are successive technology generations. They are not teams competing to be the same generation.

    7. Re:TickTock by Targon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This has been used across the entire industry, just without a cute catch-phrase for it, and without pushing for this quick an improvement to process technology.

      Think about it, you would see the overall design come out, then that same design would be released on an improved process(going from 90 to 65nm for example). The design would be the same, just an improved process that would allow for faster versions of that design.

      AMD has done it as well to an extent, but the high-end processors in the K8 generation are still on 90nm while the lower-clocked chips are at 65nm. Intel has more resources, so can throw more resources at fab process improvements while keeping the same number of resources focused on the overall CPU design.

      Now, there are some disadvantages to Intel's method of approaching CPU innovation, including not looking for other ways to improve system performance. Think about it, AMD was able to do well due to the integrated memory controller and HyperTransport with a much smaller amount of cache. Even with these elements, will Intel come out with anything really NEW that will improve overall system performance?

      So, Intel may hold the lead in terms of performance, or the AMD K10 architecture may allow AMD to catch back up. Either of these are possibilities at this point, and AMD is also working on things like adding some GPU functionality to their processors(Fusion being the first example of this). Even if the GPU power on the CPU is limited in terms of performance, it may add to the graphics processing power of an add-in video card to give an edge in terms of performance. Sure, Intel may be the platform for those who run MS Office, but for those who want some graphics power, AMD may end up with a clear advantage.

      Tick-Tock is just an Intel way of saying they will do the same thing they always have, just pushing out improvements faster. AMD is focused more on figuring out ways to do things better because they can't keep up in a straight MHz competition, or on a straight fab process competition.

    8. Re:TickTock by fitten · · Score: 1

      It's not new, except for Intel actually giving it a name and using the name and the procedure for marketing purposes. The DEC Alpha team did it this way, for example.

    9. Re:TickTock by hikaricloud · · Score: 1

      If ME was created by the new technology folks, I hope they got fired.

      Scratch that. I hope they were eaten by seals.

      --
      There's a lot of fucked up shit on the internet. And I've downloaded it all.
    10. Re:TickTock by Agripa · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is nothing new at Intel or any comparable semiconductor manufacturer who owns their own fabrication plants. Bob Colwell discussed this in a presentation he gave at Stanford. Intel has separate design teams to handle new designs and refinements to existing designs. The later teams are often linked with process technology or fabrication plants because it is very very expensive to have a new process become available for use in production while having nothing available to take advantage of it.

    11. Re:TickTock by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 1

      Tick-tock isn't just a name for something everyone else already does. There was really no such regimentation for how semiconductor companies released their products. tick-tock is very regimented and tightly scheduled. Previously you might have 2-3 major arch changes on the same process before a new process was used, or you would roll out a new process and a new arch at the same time (or very close together).

    12. Re:TickTock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "AMD is focused more on figuring out ways to do things better"

      You don't know much about microarchitecture design. The microarchitecture on Intels current x86 CPUs has had a lot of "figuring out ways to do things better". The K10 is has not updated the core microarch a lot since K8, it is essentially the same.

    13. Re:TickTock by andreyw · · Score: 1

      95/98/ME was just a natural progression and continuation of Win 1.0, Win 2.0, Win 3.1, Win 3.11... NT on the other hand, _WAS_ new technology and is a real fully preemptive multi-cpu operating system. DirectX hasn't been supported on NT because there was no business reason to. NT wasn't targetted for the home market, while workstations and servers don't really need 3D.

    14. Re:TickTock by Wavicle · · Score: 1

      Now, there are some disadvantages to Intel's method of approaching CPU innovation, including not looking for other ways to improve system performance.

      Ummm... didn't read the article, did you? Tick-Tock was created precisely to address the issue of more aggressive CPU innovation. One ADVANTAGE of Intel's method is CPU innovation. The Nehalem team can look at all sorts of crazy new innovations without wondering if it will fail on actual silicon. The Penryn team will let the Nehalem team know where the trouble spots of 45nm are.

      Think about it, AMD was able to do well due to the integrated memory controller and HyperTransport with a much smaller amount of cache. Even with these elements, will Intel come out with anything really NEW that will improve overall system performance?

      I dunno, was HyperTransport really all that innovative, or did they license the Alpha EV6 bus and give it a fancy name? Hypertransport rocks, to be sure. The lesson here is: companies need to re-invest in top-flight engineering labs like those that held the Alpha design team.

      So, Intel may hold the lead in terms of performance, or the AMD K10 architecture may allow AMD to catch back up. Either of these are possibilities at this point, and AMD is also working on things like adding some GPU functionality to their processors(Fusion being the first example of this). Even if the GPU power on the CPU is limited in terms of performance, it may add to the graphics processing power of an add-in video card to give an edge in terms of performance. Sure, Intel may be the platform for those who run MS Office, but for those who want some graphics power, AMD may end up with a clear advantage.

      Now that's some pretty awesome speculative fanboyism there (I counted five "may"s in there). Benchmarks suggest that the best gaming performance comes from an Intel CPU system. I don't think AMD is seriously targeting Fusion at the gamer market unless they are going to replace that onboard memory controller with a GDDR controller and everyone is going to spend 5x as much on memory.

      Tick-Tock is just an Intel way of saying they will do the same thing they always have, just pushing out improvements faster. AMD is focused more on figuring out ways to do things better because they can't keep up in a straight MHz competition, or on a straight fab process competition.

      Historically, looking at Intel's process, you have absolutely nothing to back up what you're saying. Can you trace alternating process shrinks and architecture improvements since, say PIII? Clock for clock, Intel is doing very well at the moment.

      --
      Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
      Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
    15. Re:TickTock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "AMD has done it as well to an extent, but the high-end processors in the K8 generation are still on 90nm while the lower-clocked chips are at 65nm. Intel has more resources, so can throw more resources at fab process improvements while keeping the same number of resources focused on the overall CPU design.

      Now, there are some disadvantages to Intel's method of approaching CPU innovation, including not looking for other ways to improve system performance. Think about it, AMD was able to do well due to the integrated memory controller and HyperTransport with a much smaller amount of cache. Even with these elements, will Intel come out with anything really NEW that will improve overall system performance?"



      You make it sound like Intel just brute forces its way through things. I see things differently.


      AMD is trying to make special modules to cover up for fundamental processing weakness: like trying to learn all sorts of new styles and special karate-kid-crane-kicks to become strong. Intel, instead, is working like Bruce Lee: just dedicating your life and body to becoming the most complete bad-ass you can be.


      I get tired of hearing "hypertransport and integrated memory controller innovation!": at the end of the day it comes down to computational power, price, and electrical power consumption, and Intel is doing quite well on all of those right now.

    16. Re:TickTock by Targon · · Score: 1

      AMD has introduced fab process improvements and applied them to the "current" designs. Across the industry, it has been unusual to release both a process improvement and a major design change at the same time. Sure it may happen, but you very often see "new design on current process technology", then later down the road the new process technology is used to improve the designs of current products, followed by a new design on the process technology of the time.

      Tick-Tock speeds the push toward the newer technologies, both on the process technology side as well as on the CPU design side is all. It will eventually run out of steam as it becomes more and more difficult to move toward a new process technology in the way the MHz race got too fast for the development of new CPU designs to keep up with. I am not saying it's not a nice idea, but in another seven to ten years, we will see how well Intel is able to keep up with their own Tick-Tock schedule.

  3. Long live.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ..the inefficiency and idiocy that is the x86 ISA.

    "But it doesn't matter that you have to use 8 instructions to perform the same thing other arch's do in 1 opcode, because the microcode is really, really, really fast!!1"

    1. Re:Long live.. by urcreepyneighbor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "inefficiency and idiocy"

      Yeah, it only conquered the world. :)

      --
      "The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
    2. Re:Long live.. by CaptnMArk · · Score: 1

      In non-benchmarks, it's a win because it's a compression for executable code.

    3. Re:Long live.. by Verte · · Score: 2, Informative

      "But it doesn't matter that you have to use 8 instructions to perform the same thing other arch's do in 1 opcode, because the microcode is really, really, really fast!!1" Actually, you have it backwards. The x86 can do a handful of RISC instructions with a single instruction. That instruction might take longer to execute, but since you get more done for that one instruction, you get better instruction cache locality.

      If you would like to troll on the failings of x86, there are well documented options for you. You must earn your troll-fu, young grasshoppa.
      --
      We at slashdot are scientists, specialists and kernel hackers. Your FUD will be found out.
    4. Re:Long live.. by pslam · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In non-benchmarks, it's a win because it's a compression for executable code.

      It's only a win if your execution is bottlenecked by instruction bus bandwidth. That only happens if you're thrashing your L1 instruction cache, and THAT only happens with horribly bloated software and/or horribly small L1 caches.

      While it's a good compression of executable code, it's good compression of x86 code. Other ISAs manage to pack way more into their instructions in the first place. Plus, the random alignment of x86 instructions means that the pipeline is elongated by a couple of stages just to find the start of them!

      Sorry, but x86 being a nice compression is a half-truth. Other ISAs manage just fine being, for example, fixed 32 bits per instruction and massively benefit from the simpler design. They also tend to be roughly as compact as x86. If you really want to see a properly compressed ISA take a look at Thumb-2.

    5. Re:Long live.. by pslam · · Score: 1

      Actually, you have it backwards. The x86 can do a handful of RISC instructions with a single instruction. That instruction might take longer to execute, but since you get more done for that one instruction, you get better instruction cache locality.

      On all the x86 architectures I know, if you use any instruction which gets microcoded, you end up with a huge performance hit. You basically run single pipelined until the microcode ends. These days, both Intel and AMD datasheets highly recommend you use simple form instructions as much as possible.

      Yes, there comes a point where instruction cache locality matters more than instructions per clock. Your average bloated GUI app would benefit more from optimise-for-size than optimise-for-speed, for example (and I wish people would realise that). Anything which pumps large amounts of data would be screwed if you did that, though.

      In any case, the point is that other architectures CAN perform far better than x86 without the variable opcode length, prefixing and other nonsense. They don't produce large amounts of executable either.

    6. Re:Long live.. by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      In any case, the point is that other architectures CAN perform far better than x86 without the variable opcode length, prefixing and other nonsense. They don't produce large amounts of executable either.

      How many of them can natively run code written for the 16-bit variant of their line that was produced 30 years ago?

      While most would claim that native 8086 and heck even 32-bit pmode support really isn't needed in the day and age of "long mode," dropping them would be a huge pain and at that point you might as well just go straight to a new ISA.

      However, that said, it's still kinda cool that you can boot something as primitive as DOS on a box made today. Not that I have install media around ... or run MSFT OSes ...

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    7. Re:Long live.. by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

      Oh stop it. The Grandparent Troll is right. The "CISC instructions running from the instruction cache into a RISC core runs really really fast" crowd always conveniently neglects to mention that the half-assed, non-orthagonal, non aligned instructions required a bus cycle to do the instruction fetch. All those pipeline stages are there to cover for the lame instructin set.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    8. Re:Long live.. by Verte · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying it always works. I'm not saying it is a good thing. If I had the free option, I would be using Alpha or Itanium.

      Instruction length is, of course, only one factor, and I am guessing a minor factor, considering memory bandwidth, data cache associativity, floating point performance, and performance and flexibility of VM management seem to be more serious problems with current x86 implementations.

      Not that any of it is really on topic :P

      --
      We at slashdot are scientists, specialists and kernel hackers. Your FUD will be found out.
    9. Re:Long live.. by Verte · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying it is good. I'm saying he is wrong. I'm all for a healthy bashing of x86, but lets keep our facts straight, please.

      And besides, there is no level playing field for comparison when that RISC core is so lame, anyway. The quality example of that being that 800MHz Alpha's used to wipe the floor with 2 GHz Pentium IV's on floating point.

      --
      We at slashdot are scientists, specialists and kernel hackers. Your FUD will be found out.
    10. Re:Long live.. by imgod2u · · Score: 1

      I don't think there's an architecture out there that deals with unaligned instructions effectively. It's hardly a problem that solely exists with x86. The "encouraged to be used" instructions, however, do run very very fast and really, if the compiler is written to favor them, what's the problem?

    11. Re:Long live.. by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 1

      Are you people still carrying on about this? RISC lost. Get over it.

  4. wow, 2 ACs?! by ardin,mcallister · · Score: 2, Funny

    So, its 45 nanometers? does that mean its 45 Ipod Nano's thick? Or would that be 4.5 Ipod Nanos thick? GAH! its too early to do this crap.

    --
    "Some men just want to watch the world burn..."
    1. Re:wow, 2 ACs?! by pipatron · · Score: 1

      Actually it's about 7e-6 iPod Nanos thick.

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    2. Re:wow, 2 ACs?! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      It's 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000045 Volkswagen Beetles thick, or about 0.45 human hairs thick.

      --
      My blog
    3. Re:wow, 2 ACs?! by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 1

      So wait. How many human hairs are in a Volkswagen Beetle?

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    4. Re:wow, 2 ACs?! by antifoidulus · · Score: 2, Funny

      Depends on how many former East German women have been in it.

      --
      Monstar L
    5. Re:wow, 2 ACs?! by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 1

      Do East German sex-change patients shed more or something?

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    6. Re:wow, 2 ACs?! by cephus440 · · Score: 1

      STOP THE INSANITY!

      An IPOD is 0.27in thick
      0.27in/1 * 0.0254m/1in * 1nm/10^-9m = 0.006858 * 10^9 = 6.9*10^6nm = IPOD NANO
      45nm/1 * 1IPOD NANO/6.9*10^6nm = 6.5*10^-6 IPOD NANOS

      That would be:0.0000065 IPOD Nanos to the 45 nanometer chip technology
      I knew those chemistry conversion factors would come in helpful some day!!!

    7. Re:wow, 2 ACs?! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      That depends -- front seat or back seat, and were you naked or at least partially clothed, was it a threesome, and, most importantly, were there Eastern European women involved?

      --
      My blog
  5. new prison job by theMerovingian · · Score: 1


    Intel's laboratories in the California town of Folsom, the birthplace of the 45nm CPU

    So that's what they make those software CEO's do in prison after back-dating stock options...

    No more making license plates I guess!

    --
    "If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
  6. Man don't you wish... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't you wish you had a machine lying around that could observe the switching of a single transistor in a CPU? That's hard core!

  7. No Linux testing? by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

    Wow. This all sounded very cool, and gave me a lot more faith in Intel. Until I realised that they hadn't once mentioned testing on Linux. Do they really ignore every real OS except windows (and probably Mac, I guess?)? :/

    1. Re:No Linux testing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux users are generally cheap and run old hardware, so they are not the market to go after since it is basically stable servers they run.

    2. Re:No Linux testing? by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

      No, linux users run the gamut, including some lots of purchasers of new servers, and very high end clusters of many processors (hint: more than you can put into any windows box).

    3. Re:No Linux testing? by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      What about IRMX?

  8. heh by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 1

    IMHO, the title should read something like "Intel's Stephen Fisher speaks" or something vague like TFA.

    --
    The game.
  9. Postal Service by Ours · · Score: 0

    I RTFA with the Postal Service song "From a great height" looping in my head.

    Get the clip and you'll understand why.

    --
    "You superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons" - The Simpsons
  10. So *that's* how it happens by sgbett · · Score: 0

    Page 2

    Bottom Illustration is a picture of what loooks like 3 giant penises

    The link underneath says "penryn's Birth"

    Coincidence?

    --
    Invaders must die
  11. It's not the hardware... by jo42 · · Score: 1

    > Merom team, that had managed to boot Windows on the A0 version of the Core 2 Duo in under thirty minutes ... Penryn worked, but it took six hours to get Windows to boot properly on it

    Quite obviously a software problem. Now if they had used Linux...

    1. Re:It's not the hardware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not exactly clear from the article ... Does someone know what they mean by this? Are they doing on-the-fly error detection and correction? Or are they talking about clock speed? Or something else?

  12. Penis Penis Penis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Image from the second page, second diagram:
    http://tweakers.net/ext/i/1190631924.png

    Come on people, those are penises. I guess Tweakers.net wanted to give us the full, long, hard scoop on these really big new processors.

  13. Re:No Linux testing? Keep looking.. by Technician · · Score: 2, Informative

    Until I realised that they hadn't once mentioned testing on Linux.

    Just because one article or press release was light on details, doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Here is what you seek. Intel did mention testing on Linux and some other operating systems.

    http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI2OCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
    "During a press briefing earlier today, Intel stated that the very first 45nm processor was already up and running and used by the Intel validation team to successfully boot a test system into Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux."

    You are welcome.

    --
    The truth shall set you free!
  14. Geographical correction by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 1

    Most people who visit the Californian town of Folsom, which lies at a two hour drive to the northeast of San Francisco, go there because it is situated close to the beautiful Lake Tahoe and some of the skiing areas in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

    Maybe it looks close if your home is in the Netherlands, but not in actual fact. No one goes to Folsom for the lake or the snow skiing (water skiing is another story). Folsom is almost at sea level, Lake Tahoe is at 6220 something, and 120 miles away.

    --
    Infuriate left and right
    1. Re:Geographical correction by seriesrover · · Score: 1

      well its about 80 miles away...but I read it as 'most people who live there...' - could be wrong.

    2. Re:Geographical correction by bitRAKE · · Score: 1

      We'd go to fish by the hatchery. (c:

  15. ObJohnnyCash by Anonymous+Meoward · · Score: 1

    "I once overclocked a CPU / just to watch it die..."

    --
    --- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
  16. Tickled. by hikaricloud · · Score: 1

    I'm extremely tickled that there was an advert for AMD on this article when I first looked at it.

    Honestly, while it's interesting to see how they are developing this chip, I am so much more interested to see how it's going to stack up to AMD's new chip in the works. Especially seeing as intel is running the 45nm and AMD is still developing on the 65nm. I'm wondering if AMD's product could actually give them the boost they need to jump out from the depths of the AM2 debacle.

    --
    There's a lot of fucked up shit on the internet. And I've downloaded it all.
    1. Re:Tickled. by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 1

      AMD's new chip is out - it's nothing terribly special. Or do you mean Phenom? Logic would dictate that since Barcelona isn't anything special (considering it's competing with a 1 year+ older chip), that a desktop chip based on this arch will not dominate since it competes with the same Intel arch on the desktop. I'm not saying Barcelona sucks - it's competitive (at least), but generally you'd kind of want a chip with a 1 year newer arch to beat its competition.

    2. Re:Tickled. by hikaricloud · · Score: 1

      I meant the Phenom, sorry for not specifying. :P I just read up on both the chips the other day, which is why my interest was sparked.

      --
      There's a lot of fucked up shit on the internet. And I've downloaded it all.
  17. Manufacturing in Arizona? by heroine · · Score: 1

    Didn't know there was an Arizona in China.

    1. Re:Manufacturing in Arizona? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Informative

      Intel processors aren't made in China. Look at them some time, they all cite their point of origin. It moves around depending on generation, they'll be upgrading some fabs and as such making no processors there, or they'll retask fabs to other things like embedded processors and so on. However they don't have a single fab in China. A good bit of them are in America, but they also have one in Ireland, a couple in Israel and so on.

      The one in question here, Fab 32, is located in Chandler, Arizona which is one of the cities in the Phoenix metro.

    2. Re:Manufacturing in Arizona? by Aluvus · · Score: 1

      Virtually no wafer fabs are located in China, for several reasons. The labor needed for a fab is skilled labor, so China offers no real advantages there. There are also a lot of issues regarding the export of "high tech" stuff to China. Most wafer fabs are located in the US, Japan, Taiwan, or Singapore.

      Intel is actually currently talking about building a fab in China. In order to stay on the good side of US regulators, it would be an "old tech" 90 nm fab. They would use it to make more "mature" products.

      Now, that's not to say they don't have any manufacturing facilities in China. In fact, they have 2 package and test plants located in China. AMD has one as well. These facilities are the next step after fabrication.

      Intel provides a full list of where its fabs and package and test facilities are.

      I know you were kidding, but believe it or not there are some types of manufacturing that are decidedly not being shipped to China.

      --
      Never mistake "can" for "should".
    3. Re:Manufacturing in Arizona? by Bender_ · · Score: 1


      There are a lot of wafer fabs in China. SMIC being the biggest company. The number is likely to increase.

  18. Re:I jerked off in the coffee pot this morning by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

    You ever wonder, when you read a post like this, if some disgruntled IT worker in some company or another really /did/ do as they claim?

  19. Not license plates... by Namlak · · Score: 1

    ...license agreements!

  20. Wow! by bondjamesbond · · Score: 0

    Wow... that's... yeah.

  21. In related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple suing Intel for trademark infringement on the term "nano".

  22. nothing new by bvdbos · · Score: 1

    ASML in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, holds about 80% of the market and has been manufacturing 45 um wafersteppers for some time already news article 2005. Intel is one of their customers, so actually Veldhoven is the birthplace of the 45nm processors... At the moment they are down to 32 nm already...

    1. Re:nothing new by Bender_ · · Score: 1


      Scaling is not driven by lithography anymore. It is driven by material science advances. Intel introduced Hafnium based gate dielectrics in 45nm, which is an incredibly impressive feat given that they are 1-2 years beyond all other companies.

      Scaling by lithography was in the 80ies and early 90ies.

  23. Dear Intel and/or AMD by fluor2 · · Score: 1

    Last 2 years, I've heard about fantastic speed increases.

    However my new PC is still slow as hell and it doesn't feel any faster than the old one.

    1. Re:Dear Intel and/or AMD by Techman83 · · Score: 1

      Are you using Vista?... I troll, I troll (or is that supposed to be kid??) :P

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
      Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
  24. Folsom Labs Blues by Nazlfrag · · Score: 1

    I hear the CPU coming, it's rolling off the press
    And I ain't seen this performance since the 90nm process.

    I'm stuck in Folsom Labs, and the clocks keep running faster,
    But that deadline keeps on coming, from that Santa Clara.

    When I was just a junior, my mentor told me, "Look,
    Always be a good engineer, don't ever push your clock"

    But I overclocked a CPU just to watch it die.
    When I heard that core blowing, I hung my head and cried.

    I bet those folks at AMD in their fancy die package
    Are probably overclocking 'till it's smoking wreckage

    Well, I know I'm ticking and tocking, I'm building two or three,
    But those specs just keep on moving, and thats what tortures me.

    If they freed me from the deadline, if that assembly line was mine
    I'd take that 90nm process and make it smaller, more refined

    Boss of Folsom Labs, that's where I want to be.
    And I'd let that CPU clockspeed grow exponentially.

  25. Tejas by Wildbiftek · · Score: 1

    "Fisher has been on Intel's payroll for quite some time: he worked on the 486 cpu, the definition of mmx and sse instructions, and also on the Pentium III. The previous product that Fisher worked on was codenamed 'Tejas'. It was to be a 65nm version of the Pentium 4 with an extremely long pipeline of 40 to 50 steps, in order to achieve clock speeds of 7GHz or even higher." Wow, up to 50 stages in the pipeline, and they were close to tapeout! Sheesh, someone needs to secretly tape it out and put that thing on ebay with a tank of liquid helium.