What does intel do with all its partially functional cpus?

[jji7skyline]

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.

Laptop CPUs don't usually have an integrated heat spreader though (lid).

 

[cbn]

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.

Doesn't the process of determining a defect already involve testing the part?

P.S. Since the core (without L2 cache) is so small I'm thinking it must be that yields are high enough that dual cores from quad cores dies just doesn't happen enough to be a large percentage of final product? But maybe they do exist in the wild?

 

[cbn]

Laptop CPUs don't usually have an integrated heat spreader though (lid).

Yep, the laptop chips come BGA....so delidding isn't necessary.

I just wonder how many folks have had to remove the heatsink from their BGA Haswell laptop so far? And then of those folks that do this, how many would even notice the die size difference?

And from a laptop OEM standpoint does Intel providing quad cores dies as dual core affect their heatsink design? (If it did then Intel could always put the harvested quad core dies as dual core in the desktop line)

 

[jji7skyline]

Yep, the laptop chips come BGA....so delidding isn't necessary.

I just wonder how folks have had to remove the heatsink from their BGA Haswell laptop so far? And then of those folks that do this, how many would even notice the die size difference?

And from a laptop OEM standpoint does Intel providing quad cores dies as dual core affect their heatsink design? (If it did then Intel could always put the harvested quad core dies as dual core in the desktop line)

That reminds me, I have to reapply the thermal paste on my Pentium 4 laptop xD

 

[Fjodor2001]

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

And you know this how? Or are you just guessing as usual, but writing it like you know for sure through some reliable source...?

 

[CHADBOGA]

And you know this how? Or are you just guessing as usual, but writing it like you know for sure through some reliable source...?

Don't be jelly of his knowledge and insights. :awe:

 

[ShintaiDK]

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:

That funny enough got me thinking on the 2 23EU SKUs with Broadwell. 🙂

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8814/intel-releases-broadwell-u-new-skus-up-to-48-eus-and-iris-6100

 

[Fjodor2001]

Don't be jelly of his knowledge and insights. :awe:

I'm not jealous, because often he is just wild-ass-guessing and has no sources. Still he writes it in a way so it looks like he knows for sure. Deceiving and misleading...

 

[Denithor]

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

I LOL'ed at this!

 

[cbn]

Regarding Haswell quad core GT2 dies with a defect in iGPU.

Besides certain E3 Xeon SKUs (that have disabled iGPU) where would these dies go? Or are there enough disabled iGPU E3 Xeons sold to cover all the defect quad core GT2 dies?