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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Yousef who wrote (51716)	8/20/2001 7:43:26 AM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

"It appears reading through all of this, that I have drawn the conclusion that Intel rates their chip to operate at a different die/junction temperature (~80C for INTC versus 95C for AMD) ... Is this correct, Mani?? If true, this would indicate a different level of required chip reliability between the two companies." Not necessarily. That could be one reason, another reason could be that they are pushing their process more. Intel regularly lowered the max. operating temp. of the PIII's when it was trying to reach, ad exceed 1GHz. Or it could be that electro-migration is worse under higher temperatures with Intel's 0.18 micron Al process than AMD's 0.18 Cu process, and to get equivalent (or even not quite as good) chip reliability Intel has to have a lower temp. spec. It would be more accurate if you had posted "If true, this could indicate a different level of required chip reliability between the two companies." because there are several possibilities...

To: Yousef who wrote (51716)	8/20/2001 7:09:27 PM
From: fyodor_	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Yousef: I have drawn the conclusion that Intel rates their chip to operate at a different die/junction temperature (~80C for INTC versus 95C for AMD) ... Is this correct, Mani?? If true, this would indicate a different level of required chip reliability between the two companies. Actually, it looks more like it's the other way around: Intel has dropped its Tj(max) to keep the same level of chip reliability. Check out the Slot PIII docs. They list the Tj(max) for PIIIs from 450MHz to the infamous 1113MHz. Since I don't have a link and don't know if Intel still provides the data sheet (but I assume they do), I'll provide the relevant list: freq. Tj(max) 450 90 500 90 533B 90 533EB 82 550 80 550E 82 600 85 600B 85 600E 82 600EB 82 650 82 667 82 700 80 733 80 750 80 800 80 800EB 80 850 80 866 80 933 75 1000 60 1000 70 1000B 70 1133 62 Judging from this, it looks like Intel had to tighten the temperature requirements every time they needed more speed. Pushing the envelope further than the process could handle, given the "old" temperature requirements, so things were tightened a bit. In the 1133MHz chips case, obviously not enough. -fyo