Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

4 of 78 comments (clear)

  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: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.
  3. 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!
  4. 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.