What does intel do with all its partially functional cpus?

[EndlessWargasm]

Or, why isn't there an i4 tricore series, or an i6 tricore with hyperthreading?

Are they just throwing them in the trash?

Simplified marketing and avoiding competing with themselves are the first reasons that jump out, but are there any others?

Thoughts?

 

[ShintaiDK]

They go to the trashbin.

The question is, how many are defect. The number is most likely so low it doesnt make sense to mae a product. Another problem as seen with AMD is, when a product like a tricore gets so popular demand goes over the normal defect volume. They had to start selling working quadcores as tricores.

 

[Fjodor2001]

They go to the trashbin.

The question is, how many are defect. The number is most likely so low it doesnt make sense to mae a product. Another problem as seen with AMD is, when a product like a tricore gets so popular demand goes over the normal defect volume. They had to start selling working quadcores as tricores.

Why not at least sell 4 core CPUs with 1-2 failed cores as 2 core CPUs? They already have 2 core SKUs in their lineup anyway.

Beats throwing them in the trashcan profit-wise.

 

[jpiniero]

I had always assumed if they had quads that had one core busted they would sell them as Xeons offlabel. I'm sure they could find someone to take it off their hands for a decent discount over the quad core.

 

[sonicology]

They go to the trashbin.

And from there on to Silicon Heaven!

 

[elemein]

Why not at least sell 4 core CPUs with 1-2 failed cores as 2 core CPUs? They already have 2 core SKUs in their lineup anyway.

Beats throwing them in the trashcan profit-wise.

Because they already have 2 core dies for all the 2 core SKU products

 

[Fjodor2001]

Because they already have 2 core dies for all the 2 core SKU products

Yeah, why sell a 4 core CPU with 1 or 2 broken cores as a 2 core CPU, when you can throw it in the trashcan and produce a new 2 core CPU which will cost you additional money. Makes total sense...

 

[ShintaiDK]

Its not just 1-2 cores, its also L3 arrays and so on.

Obviously the yield is high enough to not make these. And the required work to harvest and test those that fails is not worth it.

The only place with harvested/outbinned cores on dies is the 8, 12 and 18 cores dies.

 

[PG]

I think Intel is doing some of this, but nobody mentioned it yet for some unknown reason. My guesses:

quad core die:
i7 with broken hyperthreading => make it an i5
i7 with a small portion of L3 broken => make it an i5

dual core die:
i3 with broken hyperthreading => make it a Pentium or Celeron
i3 with broken AVX, AES, or a small portion of L3 broken => make it a Pentium or Celeron

Again a guess from me: With hyperthreading, there must be some redundancy in each core so it can handle two threads at once. With the redundancy I would think it's about impossible for a core to be so bad that it can't even handle one thread at all. If each core has a really good, smart design, and we know Intel is really good, then they can fuse off portions to salvage a core when it's partially bad. This is why I'm guessing about bad hyperthreading cores being salvaged and used as one thread per core models if that makes any sense.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Hyperthreading is such an incredible small and integrated part of the core they only feature bin that. If hyperthreading is broken, so is the core.

AVX etc isnt broken either, featurebinned. Same applies, if AVX is broken so is the core.

L3 is certainly something they can harvest from, but they already got extra cache blocks.

 

[Exophase]

Yeah, why sell a 4 core CPU with 1 or 2 broken cores as a 2 core CPU, when you can throw it in the trashcan and produce a new 2 core CPU which will cost you additional money. Makes total sense...

There's also a cost associated with being able to re-screen these parts and move them to a different product bin that may not be worth it.

 

[Phynaz]

Yeah, why sell a 4 core CPU with 1 or 2 broken cores as a 2 core CPU, when you can throw it in the trashcan and produce a new 2 core CPU which will cost you additional money. Makes total sense...

Yeah, the people running the worlds largest and most profitable semiconductor company are obviously idiots.

 

[Burpo]

"What does intel do with all its partially functional cpus?"

They're at my house.. Both of them

 

[Idontcare]

Yeah, the people running the worlds largest and most profitable semiconductor company are obviously idiots.

:thumbsup:

 

[videogames101]

Many of them will be looked at carefully to identify the exact mode of failure.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Hyperthreading is such an incredible small and integrated part of the core they only feature bin that. If hyperthreading is broken, so is the core.

AVX etc isnt broken either, featurebinned. Same applies, if AVX is broken so is the core.

L3 is certainly something they can harvest from, but they already got extra cache blocks.

Along the same sort of line of thinking, isn't the GPU almost half the die now?

I'm pretty sure all the desktop Haswell i5s are shipping with HD 4600s. If a fab issue smoked an EU, they could sell it as an HD4400 maybe... but I guess they're not.

Their process tech and fabrication must just be good enough that it doesn't really matter. :awe:

 

[RampantAndroid]

Yeah, why sell a 4 core CPU with 1 or 2 broken cores as a 2 core CPU, when you can throw it in the trashcan and produce a new 2 core CPU which will cost you additional money. Makes total sense...

This assumes the failures are limited to disabling a core or two....which I don't know if that'll be the case. What is the distribution of failures?

 

[jji7skyline]

Multi-core CPU manufacturing has come a long way since AMD made those tri-cores. I doubt that yields are low enough on mainstream quad core CPUs that making a tri-core CPU will be more profitable than simply throwing the defective chips away.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Yeah, why sell a 4 core CPU with 1 or 2 broken cores as a 2 core CPU, when you can throw it in the trashcan and produce a new 2 core CPU which will cost you additional money. Makes total sense...

We're talking about trashing a part that probably costs a couple dollars to actually produce. If they were unable to meet demand, and couldn't hope to produce as many parts as they can sell, then it might make sense to salvage the part. But that's not the case.

 

[beginner99]

Yeah, why sell a 4 core CPU with 1 or 2 broken cores as a 2 core CPU, when you can throw it in the trashcan and produce a new 2 core CPU which will cost you additional money. Makes total sense...

Yeah it makes sense. If the whole process to determine what is defective and as what it can be sold (+ marketing of such a product) is more expensive than throwing it in the trash, it doesn't make sense to create such a product.

You are falling for the sunk cost fallacy.

Sunk-cost fallacy occurs when people make decisions about a current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation.

This is a very, very problematic thing. I hope you don't work in management...

 

[escrow4]

They are sent to AMD with a black forest cake and a note saying "Even broken these are still superior". :awe:

 

[cbn]

Yeah it makes sense. If the whole process to determine what is defective and as what it can be sold (+ marketing of such a product) is more expensive than throwing it in the trash, it doesn't make sense to create such a product.

In this case though the dual core product in question already exists, so there is no need for extra marketing or analysis.

Now if the harvested die was a single core, then I would be more likely to agree with you.

 

[cbn]

With Ivy Bridge there were actually two dual core dies:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5876/the-rest-of-the-ivy-bridge-die-sizes

The GT1 had 3MB cache and the GT2 came with 4MB cache.

AFAIK, there is only one dual core die for Haswell. Not sure how much cache it comes with or if they use a quad core die to make the 4MB cache dual core now. I guess it just depends on how the economics and harvesting works out.

EDIT: According to this Haswell dual core is 4MB cache with GT2. So they make 2MB and 3MB cache GT1 Haswell dual cores from this die.

 

[redzo]

They could have reached manufacturing awesomeness: 2 cores never get fully broken so they can scavenge them and sell them as pentiums and celerons. At the end of the day, they could always salvage 2 cores from a full 4 core i5.
The absence of a 3 core intel i cpu could be because:
1. they simply do not care about releasing such a cpu.
2. simply put: they cannot get a hefty die supply of functional 3 cores scavenged from 4 core dies.

 

[cbn]

The only place with harvested/outbinned cores on dies is the 8, 12 and 18 cores dies.

On those big Xeon E5/E7 derived dies its going to be pretty obvious where a harvested die came from.

But can we really know if dual core desktop or laptop chip didn't come from a quad core die?

I'm thinking outside of official word from Intel enough people would have delid their dual core desktop CPU (extremely unlikely on such a low end product) or removed the heatsink on the dual core haswell laptops and notice that the die was 177mm2 vs. 130mm2.