Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Elmer Phud]

Sgolds -

Ok, I see what you are saying. What you describe all falls under the general category of defect density and you described it well. As for Itanium's core area, I have heard, but don't know for sure, that it is smaller than NorthWood's. If this is true than the area that can't be protected by redundancy is smaller than you are considering.

So to pick nits, I wouldn't say Itanium is more difficult to produce. It takes no additional "special effort", but it is obviously more expensive. If you want to call this more difficult then I won't argue the point.