Jim, customers or OEMs finding bugs in Itaniums proves they are actually being bought, and used with serious software. If you had any experience with large systems, like I do, you'd know that it's impossible to find all the bugs in chips or systems of this magnitude before shipments start. That's because there are a limitless number of possible customer configurations out there, with huge I/O farms, that can expose bugs orders of magnitude tougher to find than a needle in a haystack. All of these configurations cannot possibly be modeled by Intel or the OEMs in their design verification centers. I also know, based on experience, that these kinds of problems usually end up to be fixable with a microcode patch, usually downloadable from the OEM's website. Not saying these are not taken seriously, they absolutely are, and the best verification engineers, as well as upper management to do the talking, will fly off to the customer to try to make things right.
So, I'm betting right now that Sledgehammer has no customer found bugs until at least EOY-2003, actually, probably not ever, and that's not because of any wonderful design capability possessed by Dirk and his boys.
Tony |
