Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Elmer Phud]

Blauboad -

Then that's probably why you don't understand that terminology :)

I guess I didn't make my point very well. If you think some parts are hand-picked, you must be assuming the others aren't. How can that be? You pick cherrys by looking for the good ones. You can see the good ones and you can see the bad ones. You inspect them with your eyes. With processors you have to test them and the fast ones get the same test as the slow ones (well potentially). So if the fast ones are cherry picked, so are the slow ones. In fact the slow ones get more testing than the fast ones. So the term cherry-picking has no special meaning when everything is treated the same way.

If you're referring to the fab process itself then there is a strong possibility that AMD is taking some non standard steps to enhance binsplits at the expense of yield. When forming transistors there is a target size for the channel and controlling it defines, in part, the limits of a process generation. In simple terms, you can aim for Xnm with a standard deviation of Ynm, X>Y. If you miss on the high side you're OK but the part will be slower, good yield-slow parts. If you're on the low side you may have exceeded the limits of the other process aspects and the transistors won't shut off. So the lower the target the faster the parts but the more parts that don't work because you've gone too far. But this is not on a die by die basis and once again the term "cherry picking" has no meaning because you can't cherry-pick a wafer. So can you explain to me what you think "cherry-picking" is and how is a part treated that isn't cherry-picked?