Nehalem Modularity

[HolyFire]

We've all heard about the Nehalem microarchitecture being modular, with the CPU package being a mix-and-match of various building blocks (cores, L3 cache, memory controllers...). Does this apply only to the design phase, or also the manufacturing? In other words, are there different fabrication lines for different blocks, which are later assembled together on a single die?

Thanks.

 

[PottedMeat]

Design only - put together the blocks on computer, verify they work, output a mask set thats given to manufacturing ( everything on a single die ). On the Pentium Pro though the core was made on a separate die as the L2 and they were placed next to each other with a bus in between ( multichip module ) . On the P2 I think they did the same thing except the L2 was on an external chip.

 

[CTho9305]

Modular chip designs are "modular" in the sense that it only takes a few months of design effort to put together the modules rather than a year or two. It is nowhere near as simple to snap the modules together as marketing organizations may lead you to believe.

 

[HolyFire]

Good to know (though I was hoping this would not be the case). Thanks.