How do they make CPUs?

ytoledano

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I understand the core is made up of several parts like the cache's, but how much do different P4s of different lines differ? Where is the difference between the P4 a, b and c?

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Cloaked

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well the first p4 was the williamette core, which had a 100 mhz bus, socket 432, a .18 micron process and a 256 KB l2 cache. THen there was the norwood core, using a sockry 468 interface, a .13 micron process, a 512 KB l2 cache, and the same 12 KB/8KB l1 cache. The original norwood, p4a, used the same 100 mhz bus, the b used a 133 mhz, and the c used the 200 mhz. A note about intel and amd bus speeds: just as ddr ram effectively doubles bandwidth by transferring data twice per clock cycle, intel's cpu buses transfer data 4x per clock cycle, so the p4a is an effective 400 mhz, the b a 533 mhz, and the c an 800 mhz. Amd uses a similar strategy, but their 200 mhz bus speeds on the high end barton chips are an effective 400 mhz speed, and their 166 give a 333 speed. Celerons are based on pentiums, but they are much slower because of lower bus speeds and cache sizes. Xeons are the high end intel chips, mostly used in 3d workstations and such, and are more different, using a different interface and core architecture.
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ufo_warviper

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Anandtech, or THG posted a VERY good article on this. Let me go hunt it down....

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Woodman

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I thought they used gerbil magic?

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ufo_warviper

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This isn't exactly a CPU article, but starting with how Graphics chips are made won't be to shabby considering there is alot of smiliariteiss in the production process. However, I'll try to find a better article if I get around to it.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1711" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1711</A>

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ytoledano

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I know all about the internal and external speeds, but what are the physical differences between the P4s?

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pIII_Man

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the wilimantee is .18 micron and has less cache

but all of the northwoods are pretty much the same...they just have diffrent core revisions....which are basically small tweaks in the manufacturing process...


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