Engineers Explain 45nm Delays, Errata

[dmelsie]

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Engineers blame simulation for quad-core "showstopper"

More than a few people noticed Intel's roadmap originally slated 45nm Penryn desktop quad-core processors for January, only to have the company change the hard launch date to a not-so-firm "Q1 2008." So what happened? In a series of interviews, the tale of quad-core Penryn began to unfold.

Processor engineers, speaking on background, detailed the problem. "Intel is very sensitive to mean time to failures. During a simulation, at high clock frequencies, engineers noticed an increase of potential failures after a designated amount of time."

He continues, "This is not acceptable for desktop customers that require longterm stability. It's a showstopper."

Previous reports of errata degrading the L2 and L3 cache performance were described as "false" -- desktop Penryn processors do not even have L3 cache. Microcode and BIOS updates issued by Intel since November do not fix or address the "showstopper" bug affecting the launch of the quad-core Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 processors.

The condition does not affect Xeon quad-core processors. Xeon uses a different stepping than the quad-core processors, which fixes this simulated condition. The quad-core 45nm Extreme Edition processor launched in November is also unaffected.

The company would not detail when the processors, originally scheduled for a January 20 launch but announced at CES last week, will see the light of day. Conservative estimates from ASUS and Gigabyte put the re-launch sometime in February. Intel completely removed its January 20 launch from its December 2007 roadmap and has not issued a new roadmap since.

Intel spokesman Dan Snyder says more. "We publicly claimed we will launch its 45nm mainstream processors in Q1 2008, and that's exactly what we did." In fact, the company announced 16 new 45nm processors last week; most of which already shipped to manufacturers -- with the exception of the quad-core desktop variants affected by the showstopper simulation bug.

Taiwanese media was quick to pin the simulated problem on complacency and lack of competition from AMD. Intel employees quickly denied the allegation, with the additional claim that the report was "humorous."

At CES last week, Snyder elaborates. "The tick-tock model prevents Intel from missing its launch dates. If the 'tock' team misses a target date, it doesn't affect the 'tick' team."

Tick-tock, the strategy of alternating cycles of architecture change and process shrink, became official company policy on January 1, 2006.

As to why the new Macbook Airs still use the 65nm Core 2 Duo processors? Even after Foxconn alluded the new notebooks would get 45nm treatment? Another Intel spokesman declined to respond, only stating, "Our partners are free to choose any of Intel's currently supported processors." Anand Shimpi explores this more.

[EarlZ]

The condition does not affect Xeon quad-core processors. Xeon uses a different stepping than the quad-core processors, which fixes this simulated condition. The quad-core 45nm Extreme Edition processor launched in November is also unaffected.

Taiwanese media was quick to pin the simulated problem on complacency and lack of competition from AMD. Intel employees quickly denied the allegation, with the additional claim that the report was "humorous."

We all know that there is no physical difference on the Xeon/EE chips aside from the unlocked multipliers, w/c confirms the statement nearing the end of the entire report.

The real reasons it that AMD has nothing to compete against the 45nm quads and it would be better for intel to dispose the remaining Q6xxx series first before releasing the Q9xxx series.

Processor engineers, speaking on background, detailed the problem. "Intel is very sensitive to mean time to failures. During a simulation, at high clock frequencies, engineers noticed an increase of potential failures after a designated amount of time."

If this is true, then i believe intel is investigating why there is a performance/overclock degradation happens a lot faster on the 45nm ( using 1.5~.17v on extreme cooling )


Disclaimer:

The above post is just my own observation based on the information from different forum users

[Der FüHRER]

any news on the dual core penryns?

[EarlZ]

any news on the dual core penryns?

Intel spokesman Dan Snyder says more. "We publicly claimed we will launch its 45nm mainstream processors in Q1 2008, and that's exactly what we did." In fact, the company announced 16 new 45nm processors last week; most of which already shipped to manufacturers

Jan 20,2008 is the scheduled world release for the wolfdales

[fish]

Taiwanese media was quick to pin the simulated problem on complacency and lack of competition from AMD. Intel employees quickly denied the allegation, with the additional claim that the report was "humorous."

humorous for them... yet true... their so complacent in just postponing it until march because of the lack of competition...

[EarlZ]

humorous for them... yet true... their so complacent in just postponing it until march because of the lack of competition...

Exactly, The 2 major reasons that Intel pushed it back is because of no competition and giving the P35 mobo more sales room ( since they dont manufacture alot of P35's now ) before the P/X45 is out

[wolverines_claws]

fyi also..they will be launching the dual-core Celeron today..tnx :mrgreen:

[wolverines_claws]

another fyi..Prices of Intel processors will be dropping starting tomorrow..tnx

[EarlZ]

FYI, you can use the edit button to add your reply instead of spamming.


and

FYI, the prices are scheduled to drop on Aug 20,2008

SOURCE

[wolverines_claws]

base on my sources, suppliers will be giving the updated pricing for Intel Processors by tomorrow..maybe, we can feel the effect of the Price drop by February pa (for selected Processors)..tnx :mrgreen: