They're leveraging dynamic potentials of the various vertical markets in order to create a strategy of diversifying assets across a wide technology base.
Seems simple enough to me:-)
This is the same with taxes though.
I get paid $1. 22 cents goes to income tax. 15% of the remaining goes to provicial/sales tax, leaving me with 66 cents. Then the thing I bought goes to someones salary, but they only get 51 of the 66 cents. Then they buy something upto a value of 43.9 cents.
So after only one level of indirection my 1 dollar is able to buy 43.9 cents worth of product. [29.10 after the 2nd level, 19.29 after the 3rd].
But then you think the government spends this money on salaries and private sector deals [e.g. build roads, schools, hospitals].
But how much of the money goes to waste like very selective suppliers. I'm sure Paul Martin shops at Zellers, eats at Patties [pub on Bank St.] and buys canadian music/movies. Or perhaps he enjoys very expensive private meals at only certain restaurants, drinks only a particular brand of wine, etc, etc.
Then on top of the personal waste you have contracts going uneven across the market. Many road work projects in Ontario [like say Ottawa and even as far as the sub-burbs like Kanata]are handled by workers from Quebec. Many new government offices open out east, etc...
It's how you convince retarded media execs to buy into the technology. They're so far removed from reality that they think they're better off with some invasive non-functional DRM protecting their interests.
I suggest anyone who questions this to take a few trips around the country [and/or overseas]. See the retarded jackasses talking loudly [and mindlessly] on their cell phones in the terminal? Those are "suits".
They're useless people. Their job is to make a lot of noise, smoke and mirrors to increase sales or other "profits" to jack up their usefulness as a living being.
So the media execs who agree to this don't understand technology and think only a "criminal mastermind" would be able to circumvent it.
Try that in San Diego... walk 20 miles... uphill... in the sun... we don't like clouds to the nearest del taco [we also don't believe in real restaurants]. Then get to walk 20 miles back... uphill... in the sun... to your hotel. Only to then be starving because A FUCKING TACO DOESN'T GO FAR!
At least where I'm from in Mississauga [Canada for you americans...] I walk 5 minutes to the nearest full featured mall with a proper sit down restaurant.:-)
DISCLAIMER: Our products are hardware only, designed for OEM integration with application software. The documentation is not very comprehensive, or in some cases absent. We are not able to help you install software, so if you don't know what you're doing, or are unable to get help somewhere else, please do not place an order. Please note that we do not offer application software support, we will make any effort necessary to help solve any technical problems with our hardware, but please use only email for contacting us on support issues. Don't expect answers on questions already covered on the website or in the manual, or questions like "how do I install Linux ?"....
So basically they slapped together some hardware, didn't document it and won't help you use it.
Because when you do a processor run in the millions and you have less than 10,000 users of a highly specialized core you lose money unless you charge a lot for it.
That's why CPUs are general purpose.
That said, the FPU on most modern processors [at least in this respect Intel Pentium 4 incuded] are actually fairly fast compared to previous generations. At least fast enough for the vast majority of their customers.
Sure a dedicated DSP or FPU engine could do more but they would also occupy more area [e.g. less space for more traditional features].
But really, what do you think a graphics card is anyways? Other than a space heater they ARE a dedicated processing engine.
If having one processor costs $X, two processors costs $Y and having two makes you more than $Y - $X profit ontop of what having only the single would, then you win.
E.g. I do a lot of compiling when I'm working. My dual can build in half the time what a single could do. That means when I'm doing something like a test suite [which builds from scratch three dozen times] I can finish the test in [say] 10 minutes instead of 20. Means I can do the test more often. My time is worth 35$ an hour normally. So for every hour I work [this is exagerated though] I save my employers 35$ because I'm not sitting waiting for builds.
But having the dual core meant my computer costs about 350$ more. So I'd have to work 10 hours for them before it would pay off [trivial to reason].
However, if you're a casual user or gamer you probably don't need a dual [other than for stroking material] and it's all cost and no benefit.
So the "standard" is basically what you can afford for your needs.
The correct solution depends on your placement. If your at the front then speed up and merge in front.
If you're in the middle or back, slow down as quick as possible [drivers behind you are legally obliged to keep their distance so you shouldn't worry about them]. Speeding up just increases the energy in your car which means when you do get clipped you'll hit something with more force and get hurt worse.
All of the times I've seen trucks do that though it's usually not super abrupt they just kinda "drift" which means you usually have loads of time.
I'm not saying this is catch all but even "adding more speed" is not a catchall and adding speed is guaranteed to add more energy to your car.
At least if you're going slower when you get hit you'll have less energy.
I don't buy that bs. There are no parts of highways where 90mph driving is "safe". Your reaction time is so short there that if you had to avoid an accident you probably couldn't.
Is it worth dying to prevent what you could solve by just leaving on time?
As for "the people will never learn..." that's bs too. We already have controls on things like narcotics and other biohazards yet you don't see mainstream drug labs and what not. They're more fringe than anything.
And really I don't care. The vast majority of drivers out there are just lucky they don't get into accidents. And when they do they're not accidents but driver error [e.g. failure to look, speeding, improper maintenance]. To add to that it shouldn't impact you in the slighest, I mean you don't speed do you?
Well ok 35$.. where does a kid get this money? Where are the parents? Don't they see the kid playing it? etc...
It's easy to blame the content producer but you fail to see another issue. Games don't make violent people. Many people play GTA and many people don't go around running over people and shooting at cops.
It's easy to blame gun violence and what not on the games, music, movies, etc. But look at the society Americans breed. "need my gun! 2nd admendment!".
I'm not saying "guns == criminals" I'm saying if you bring a gun to work to defend yourself from thiefs they'll just bring weapons to defend their actions. You're going to get robbed and having a gun will not help that.
Nobody wants to say that, instead they're all about "GTA makes kids killers!" Because it's easy and sensationalism [just like saying gun owners are the cause too].
And frankly I don't care "about the kids". When I was a kid my parents were around to supervise and guide. If kids today are so free maybe that's the parents fault and not some company that sells video games intended for 17+ yr olds.
Video games represent and express thought. You don't think games like GTA aren't a mockery [and hyperbole] about our lives?
Video games have story lines, dialogue, characters, etc. In what way is that not basically the foundation of any fiction novel?
I've been to San Diego [which is what GTA:SA is supposed to be modelled off], heck I'm actually there right now [visiting friends] and it's nothing like the game. The game is an exageration. But why do that? Because they're trying to say something. Look how ridiculous people are!
Who are you to say expression through a video game is not speech?
Stop bringing minors into this. Whether it's speech or not has nothing to do with "save the children" bullshit. Frankly I'd look squarely at the parents who allow their kids to have the 100s of dollars required to buy these games.
But I guess in your eyes anything that's offensive can't possibly be speech right?
Because humans aren't subject to habit or "group-pre-think"...
I really think that AI is possible with a sufficiently complex program. To think that humans are some magical being with incomprehensible thinking power is just folly.
We think because we have "patterns" of circuits in our brains which use chemicals to transmit signals from one end to the other.
Sure, we develop new patterns of "stimuli handlers", e.g. we add to our program which is something computers programs don't do [in a useful way]. But it isn't magical it's just stimuli-response learning.
e.g. stomach makes gurgle, you learn to go eat.
That's not divine intervention it's just survival [e.g. those who didn't feed when hungry would just die off].
etc, etc, etc.
Didn't RTFA and don't care about the company in the article...
Video games are speech. Government law banning sale of video games is against the 1st.
Seems rather clear to me.
Why not ban the sale of AFA approved readers and movies? They offend me and clearly that's not a 1st admendment issue because according to you they're just trying to make money.
You could have a lower power [smaller] controller detect IRQs or something. You'd need a physical relay to cut power to the processor. You can't just gate off the power.
I'm waiting for "can scale nicer"... It's nice that the PentiumM can hit 600Mhz [1Ghz for AMD64] at idle but why even that high? Why not "sufficiently low to keep interrupts happy" like 100Mhz or so is more than enough. power consumption of the processor is a function of [mostly] how many transistors are switching at what voltage and frequency.
Also what about the other chips? Nobody talks about the northbridge or GPU powersavings [or ram]. And rarely do you see good control on the backlight. It's either totally off [screensaver] or totally on. Why can't you have a light=off mode for the intermediate.
As for shutting a core down that requires OS changes as well. You'd have to mitigate all tasks then just stop giving one cpu any tasks while the usage is less than $blah. Probably not as "trivial" as it sounds.
It takes resources to efficiently decode variable length opcodes [CISC no less] to RISC operations.
Look at the PPC, ARM and MIPS way of doing things. They have fixed length opcodes and as a result don't really have large decoders [they still have them but that's mostly to tell the core which pipeline and resources the opcode has].
If the x86 were a fixed length opcode ISA I'd say "sure why not" but it isn't. As a result they have to dedicate scan engines and the such. For instance, the AMD64 reads a 16 byte window which [I've heard] it appends to a sliding maximum of 8 bytes it has already and then decodes upto three opcodes.
What happens when you have opcodes that cross the boundary? You get stalls.
In the ARM world all opcodes are aligned on 32-bits [the lower two bits of the pc register are not available]. So if an ARM reads in 16 bytes it KNOWS it has 4 instructions [or 8 if it's in thumb mode]. It doesn't have to have a "scan" engine to find the opcode boundaries nor have to worry about verification on boundaries [e.g. if an opcode spills into the next window].
Decoding is a large enough problem though, look at the P4. They had to use a decode "trace" cache just to keep the core fed [and even then it fails]. The AMD processors have fairly complicated decode engines that can decode most x86 instructions three at a time at full clock speed. That can't be cheap.
A "dual mode" chip where you do x86 and RISCop would defeat the purpose since you still have the x86 decoders there. The only solution is to drop the ISA alltogether.
I suggest you look up the overview of how they make processors. You'll see it's an entirely "analogue" procedure.
A simpler analogy would be egg "production". They take 100s if not 1000s of animals laying eggs, a certain percentage are duds [e.g. not fit for human consumption], certain percentage are small, medium, large, etc. The same basic process is used in each case. Feed animal, wait, capture egg, rinse, repeat.
It isn't that they "shrinkray" some eggs and sell them as "small" it's that they ended up that way.
Similarly when you shoot the laser [or interference pattern] through the mask to hit the die the light may be slightly off meaning the transistor may not be entirely in place and as a result take longer to switch [or not at all, e.g. dud]. The result is a chip that in order to meet the clock period overall has to be clocked slower.
Remember that the processor is as fast as the slowest clock domain part. So if your 50K transistor ALU [pulling that # out of my ass] has one transistor that is 20% slower the entire ALU must be clocked 20% slower or it'll fail.
A way to mitigate this would be to have different clock domains for parts but that would make them slower [more latency] and harder [and larger] to produce. So they design with margins. Your 2Ghz processor has parts in it that are actually meant for 2.2Ghz [or even higher] and account for "worst case" processors their yield of 2Ghz parts ends up being profitable.
The same is true in any digital parts design. A 200Mhz AES core likely can hit 250Mhz or higher in "best case". But customers don't care for "best case" because they want a design they can mass produce reliably. I'm not an EE, I don't claim to know all of the facts but that's the "jist" of it as I got it from working at a fabless hardware firm.
You think your 1.8Ghz Sempron is a specially made from a 1.8Ghz-only photomask? No, it's the same design they use for their 2Ghz parts [or whatever] and it just happens that one is either only capable of safely working at 2Ghz [either outside margins theoretical or not [*]] or they just want to sell it as 1.8Ghz.
[*] This is why some chips are overclockable. The real margin for error may be [say] 7% but they use 10% just to be safe.
Also a correction, the 65nm Yonah wouldn't have the same % of failure. It has more features so the failure rate would obviously be higher. I was being overly general there [I also don't have statistics in hand] I was just trying to point out that the more features a chip has the more likely it's gonna fail to hit the desired clock period.
that's what we call "vendor lockin"... Intel will do anything in their power to make it expensive to move to a competitor. In the desktop scene it doesn't matter because a mobo is like 100$. In the laptop scene it's quite a different story [unfortunately].
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but keep in mind the gun registry stops crime! [sarcasm]. I mean crimnals will register their guns [despite the fact they can't].
:-) [kiddin....mostly]
Of course the liberals will never scrap it because
a) it's a cash cow
and
b) it would mean they'd have to be responsible with their charge.
But having been in the states for the last week and a half I can say I still rather be in Canada. No dirty mexicans!
They're leveraging dynamic potentials of the various vertical markets in order to create a strategy of diversifying assets across a wide technology base.
:-)
Seems simple enough to me
This is the same with taxes though.
I get paid $1. 22 cents goes to income tax. 15% of the remaining goes to provicial/sales tax, leaving me with 66 cents. Then the thing I bought goes to someones salary, but they only get 51 of the 66 cents. Then they buy something upto a value of 43.9 cents.
So after only one level of indirection my 1 dollar is able to buy 43.9 cents worth of product. [29.10 after the 2nd level, 19.29 after the 3rd].
But then you think the government spends this money on salaries and private sector deals [e.g. build roads, schools, hospitals].
But how much of the money goes to waste like very selective suppliers. I'm sure Paul Martin shops at Zellers, eats at Patties [pub on Bank St.] and buys canadian music/movies. Or perhaps he enjoys very expensive private meals at only certain restaurants, drinks only a particular brand of wine, etc, etc.
Then on top of the personal waste you have contracts going uneven across the market. Many road work projects in Ontario [like say Ottawa and even as far as the sub-burbs like Kanata]are handled by workers from Quebec. Many new government offices open out east, etc...
It boggles the mind.
Tom
What's the point?
It's how you convince retarded media execs to buy into the technology. They're so far removed from reality that they think they're better off with some invasive non-functional DRM protecting their interests.
I suggest anyone who questions this to take a few trips around the country [and/or overseas]. See the retarded jackasses talking loudly [and mindlessly] on their cell phones in the terminal? Those are "suits".
They're useless people. Their job is to make a lot of noise, smoke and mirrors to increase sales or other "profits" to jack up their usefulness as a living being.
So the media execs who agree to this don't understand technology and think only a "criminal mastermind" would be able to circumvent it.
Tom
sony this sony that sony this that and sony that this, sony sony sony, sony who sony what sony how and sony why? ...
IGNORE THEM.
Don't protest, don't argue, don't boycott, don't fight.
Just ignore them. I couldn't name you five popular Sony labeled bands or groups. Stop thinking about it.
Are people really that compelled to buy every piece of music they come into?
Tom
They never mention the capacity?
...
If the capacity is like 30mAh at 3v then no sleh the thing can charge in 30 seconds
Tom
Try that in San Diego... walk 20 miles ... uphill ... in the sun ... we don't like clouds to the nearest del taco [we also don't believe in real restaurants]. Then get to walk 20 miles back ... uphill ... in the sun ... to your hotel. Only to then be starving because A FUCKING TACO DOESN'T GO FAR!
:-)
At least where I'm from in Mississauga [Canada for you americans...] I walk 5 minutes to the nearest full featured mall with a proper sit down restaurant.
Tom
DISCLAIMER: Our products are hardware only, designed for OEM integration with application software. The documentation is not very comprehensive, or in some cases absent. We are not able to help you install software, so if you don't know what you're doing, or are unable to get help somewhere else, please do not place an order. Please note that we do not offer application software support, we will make any effort necessary to help solve any technical problems with our hardware, but please use only email for contacting us on support issues. Don't expect answers on questions already covered on the website or in the manual, or questions like "how do I install Linux ?"....
So basically they slapped together some hardware, didn't document it and won't help you use it.
Tom
Because when you do a processor run in the millions and you have less than 10,000 users of a highly specialized core you lose money unless you charge a lot for it.
That's why CPUs are general purpose.
That said, the FPU on most modern processors [at least in this respect Intel Pentium 4 incuded] are actually fairly fast compared to previous generations. At least fast enough for the vast majority of their customers.
Sure a dedicated DSP or FPU engine could do more but they would also occupy more area [e.g. less space for more traditional features].
But really, what do you think a graphics card is anyways? Other than a space heater they ARE a dedicated processing engine.
Tom
Standards? It's simple cost-benefit analysis.
If having one processor costs $X, two processors costs $Y and having two makes you more than $Y - $X profit ontop of what having only the single would, then you win.
E.g. I do a lot of compiling when I'm working. My dual can build in half the time what a single could do. That means when I'm doing something like a test suite [which builds from scratch three dozen times] I can finish the test in [say] 10 minutes instead of 20. Means I can do the test more often. My time is worth 35$ an hour normally. So for every hour I work [this is exagerated though] I save my employers 35$ because I'm not sitting waiting for builds.
But having the dual core meant my computer costs about 350$ more. So I'd have to work 10 hours for them before it would pay off [trivial to reason].
However, if you're a casual user or gamer you probably don't need a dual [other than for stroking material] and it's all cost and no benefit.
So the "standard" is basically what you can afford for your needs.
Tom
But then you factor in the cost
The correct solution depends on your placement. If your at the front then speed up and merge in front.
If you're in the middle or back, slow down as quick as possible [drivers behind you are legally obliged to keep their distance so you shouldn't worry about them]. Speeding up just increases the energy in your car which means when you do get clipped you'll hit something with more force and get hurt worse.
All of the times I've seen trucks do that though it's usually not super abrupt they just kinda "drift" which means you usually have loads of time.
I'm not saying this is catch all but even "adding more speed" is not a catchall and adding speed is guaranteed to add more energy to your car.
At least if you're going slower when you get hit you'll have less energy.
Tom
I don't buy that bs. There are no parts of highways where 90mph driving is "safe". Your reaction time is so short there that if you had to avoid an accident you probably couldn't.
Is it worth dying to prevent what you could solve by just leaving on time?
As for "the people will never learn..." that's bs too. We already have controls on things like narcotics and other biohazards yet you don't see mainstream drug labs and what not. They're more fringe than anything.
And really I don't care. The vast majority of drivers out there are just lucky they don't get into accidents. And when they do they're not accidents but driver error [e.g. failure to look, speeding, improper maintenance]. To add to that it shouldn't impact you in the slighest, I mean you don't speed do you?
Tom
Quite frankly if they can't be responsible enough then fuck them. Driving is not a right.
And for the record, you can be legally banned from drinking alcohol [most parole contracts have that for instance].
You may see it as a "nanny state" I just see it as the fact that individuals are not taking responsibility so it's time they're forced to.
You want this not to become law? Drive properly. It's a privilege not a right.
Tom
"I've been in enough situations where I needed a burst of speed to come out of the situation in one piece,"
Such as ?
If you're passing a car then need to speed to avoid a collision with on coming traffic you're a bad driver and should toss out your license.
In no way shape or form is more speed the solution to legitimate traffic situations.
Tom
Well ok 35$ .. where does a kid get this money? Where are the parents? Don't they see the kid playing it? etc...
It's easy to blame the content producer but you fail to see another issue. Games don't make violent people. Many people play GTA and many people don't go around running over people and shooting at cops.
It's easy to blame gun violence and what not on the games, music, movies, etc. But look at the society Americans breed. "need my gun! 2nd admendment!".
I'm not saying "guns == criminals" I'm saying if you bring a gun to work to defend yourself from thiefs they'll just bring weapons to defend their actions. You're going to get robbed and having a gun will not help that.
Nobody wants to say that, instead they're all about "GTA makes kids killers!" Because it's easy and sensationalism [just like saying gun owners are the cause too].
And frankly I don't care "about the kids". When I was a kid my parents were around to supervise and guide. If kids today are so free maybe that's the parents fault and not some company that sells video games intended for 17+ yr olds.
Tom
How are books or movies speech?
Video games represent and express thought. You don't think games like GTA aren't a mockery [and hyperbole] about our lives?
Video games have story lines, dialogue, characters, etc. In what way is that not basically the foundation of any fiction novel?
I've been to San Diego [which is what GTA:SA is supposed to be modelled off], heck I'm actually there right now [visiting friends] and it's nothing like the game. The game is an exageration. But why do that? Because they're trying to say something. Look how ridiculous people are!
Who are you to say expression through a video game is not speech?
Stop bringing minors into this. Whether it's speech or not has nothing to do with "save the children" bullshit. Frankly I'd look squarely at the parents who allow their kids to have the 100s of dollars required to buy these games.
But I guess in your eyes anything that's offensive can't possibly be speech right?
Tom
Because humans aren't subject to habit or "group-pre-think"...
I really think that AI is possible with a sufficiently complex program. To think that humans are some magical being with incomprehensible thinking power is just folly.
We think because we have "patterns" of circuits in our brains which use chemicals to transmit signals from one end to the other.
Sure, we develop new patterns of "stimuli handlers", e.g. we add to our program which is something computers programs don't do [in a useful way]. But it isn't magical it's just stimuli-response learning.
e.g. stomach makes gurgle, you learn to go eat.
That's not divine intervention it's just survival [e.g. those who didn't feed when hungry would just die off].
etc, etc, etc.
Didn't RTFA and don't care about the company in the article...
Tom
Video games are speech. Government law banning sale of video games is against the 1st.
Seems rather clear to me.
Why not ban the sale of AFA approved readers and movies? They offend me and clearly that's not a 1st admendment issue because according to you they're just trying to make money.
The right to speech includes unpopular speech.
Tom
You could have a lower power [smaller] controller detect IRQs or something. You'd need a physical relay to cut power to the processor. You can't just gate off the power.
Tom
I'm waiting for "can scale nicer" ... It's nice that the PentiumM can hit 600Mhz [1Ghz for AMD64] at idle but why even that high? Why not "sufficiently low to keep interrupts happy" like 100Mhz or so is more than enough. power consumption of the processor is a function of [mostly] how many transistors are switching at what voltage and frequency.
Also what about the other chips? Nobody talks about the northbridge or GPU powersavings [or ram]. And rarely do you see good control on the backlight. It's either totally off [screensaver] or totally on. Why can't you have a light=off mode for the intermediate.
As for shutting a core down that requires OS changes as well. You'd have to mitigate all tasks then just stop giving one cpu any tasks while the usage is less than $blah. Probably not as "trivial" as it sounds.
Tom
It takes resources to efficiently decode variable length opcodes [CISC no less] to RISC operations.
Look at the PPC, ARM and MIPS way of doing things. They have fixed length opcodes and as a result don't really have large decoders [they still have them but that's mostly to tell the core which pipeline and resources the opcode has].
If the x86 were a fixed length opcode ISA I'd say "sure why not" but it isn't. As a result they have to dedicate scan engines and the such. For instance, the AMD64 reads a 16 byte window which [I've heard] it appends to a sliding maximum of 8 bytes it has already and then decodes upto three opcodes.
What happens when you have opcodes that cross the boundary? You get stalls.
In the ARM world all opcodes are aligned on 32-bits [the lower two bits of the pc register are not available]. So if an ARM reads in 16 bytes it KNOWS it has 4 instructions [or 8 if it's in thumb mode]. It doesn't have to have a "scan" engine to find the opcode boundaries nor have to worry about verification on boundaries [e.g. if an opcode spills into the next window].
Decoding is a large enough problem though, look at the P4. They had to use a decode "trace" cache just to keep the core fed [and even then it fails]. The AMD processors have fairly complicated decode engines that can decode most x86 instructions three at a time at full clock speed. That can't be cheap.
A "dual mode" chip where you do x86 and RISCop would defeat the purpose since you still have the x86 decoders there. The only solution is to drop the ISA alltogether.
Tom
Everyone loves to hate gaim apparently but it works just fine, handles msn, ym, aim, jabber and a few others. It works in Windows and the *NIX.
Sure a year ago Gaim sucked ass [crashed a lot] but it has since been very reliable.
Tom
I suggest you look up the overview of how they make processors. You'll see it's an entirely "analogue" procedure.
A simpler analogy would be egg "production". They take 100s if not 1000s of animals laying eggs, a certain percentage are duds [e.g. not fit for human consumption], certain percentage are small, medium, large, etc. The same basic process is used in each case. Feed animal, wait, capture egg, rinse, repeat.
It isn't that they "shrinkray" some eggs and sell them as "small" it's that they ended up that way.
Similarly when you shoot the laser [or interference pattern] through the mask to hit the die the light may be slightly off meaning the transistor may not be entirely in place and as a result take longer to switch [or not at all, e.g. dud]. The result is a chip that in order to meet the clock period overall has to be clocked slower.
Remember that the processor is as fast as the slowest clock domain part. So if your 50K transistor ALU [pulling that # out of my ass] has one transistor that is 20% slower the entire ALU must be clocked 20% slower or it'll fail.
A way to mitigate this would be to have different clock domains for parts but that would make them slower [more latency] and harder [and larger] to produce. So they design with margins. Your 2Ghz processor has parts in it that are actually meant for 2.2Ghz [or even higher] and account for "worst case" processors their yield of 2Ghz parts ends up being profitable.
The same is true in any digital parts design. A 200Mhz AES core likely can hit 250Mhz or higher in "best case". But customers don't care for "best case" because they want a design they can mass produce reliably. I'm not an EE, I don't claim to know all of the facts but that's the "jist" of it as I got it from working at a fabless hardware firm.
Tom
Dude, I live in fantasy world where products have "merits" not "markets" and people do things because they're right not "impressive".
If Intel [or AMD] had any sense of justice they wouldn't prolong the x86 line because it's just plain ugly.
Tom
Um, they just mark them down...
You think your 1.8Ghz Sempron is a specially made from a 1.8Ghz-only photomask? No, it's the same design they use for their 2Ghz parts [or whatever] and it just happens that one is either only capable of safely working at 2Ghz [either outside margins theoretical or not [*]] or they just want to sell it as 1.8Ghz.
[*] This is why some chips are overclockable. The real margin for error may be [say] 7% but they use 10% just to be safe.
Also a correction, the 65nm Yonah wouldn't have the same % of failure. It has more features so the failure rate would obviously be higher. I was being overly general there [I also don't have statistics in hand] I was just trying to point out that the more features a chip has the more likely it's gonna fail to hit the desired clock period.
Tom
that's what we call "vendor lockin" ... Intel will do anything in their power to make it expensive to move to a competitor. In the desktop scene it doesn't matter because a mobo is like 100$. In the laptop scene it's quite a different story [unfortunately].
I suspect you're right about their motives.
Tom