Snowrider:
You get an F for poor reading comprehension.
The answer to your question is that Intel's 45nm process is broken as far as producibility goes. They just paper launched 16 45nm CPUs. According to Intel boosters, that is a big sign of a broken process. I say it shows a broken design needing a respin and Intel doesn't want it bandied around that all their 45nm CPUs have a system crash bug that needs a respin. AMD took the heat by publically admitting it. Intel tries to sneak by. They have learned little from the FDIV and P3-1.13 fiascos.
Given the secrecy, this errata likely can't be worked around. Or it could be worked around with a huge hit to performance (likely worse than AMD's TLB BIOS fix). What would happen to Intel if the new respin fails to correct the errata? A slippage to Q2 and a big loss of face. And if all current 45nm CPUs are affected? P3-1.13 in spades. If the bug is in Conroe CPUs? Disaster.
Even if all of this is design related, the 45nm process can still be poor as far as production is concerned. They are building 4 45nm fabs which is the same as how many 65nm fabs they have. The same output from the same size fabs yields the obvious conclusion that the 45nm process yields only as much as the 65nm process does per sqft of cleanroom space. And since the 45nm dies are quite a bit smaller than the 65nm ones, shows that the yield must have gone down (less good dies compared to possible dies) and/or the wafer throughput is much lower (less wafers per week).
So the answer to your question is obviously, NO!
Pete
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