Anandtech amazing tour of Intels Research & Test Center

This is a totally amazing <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1584" target="_new">artical</A> that Anandtech has written about his tour of Intel's Hillsboro site, which is a Intels major research and test center for its CPU's.

Absolute first class artical, makes a change of the usual hardware reviews...why can't TomsHardware write something like this ??

The amount of testing that goes into Intels CPU's is amazing ! and I liked the pictures of the test bed showing a aircooled ALU unit running at 10Ghz ! FANTASTIC ! and also how Intel can correct small physical circuit errors in the silicon using Laser Voltage Probe together with FIB...great stuff !

Interesting quotes from the artical:

<font color=blue><i>"Almost as absurd as the idea of Intel backing out of their IA-64 development in favor of x86-64 is the unfortunate perception that the world’s largest desktop microprocessor manufacturer is not driven by engineering but rather by marketing. If microprocessor design were easy enough for a team of PR agents to tackle then many of us would have to change majors or head back to school very soon. The fact of the matter is that Intel is as driven by innovation as they are by engineering."

"If you only take away one thing from this article it should be that above all, Intel is driven by engineering and technology and not by marketing (although it may not always seem that way)."

"Note that this still doesn’t eliminate the possibility of Intel working on another 64-bit project that would end up competing with AMD’s x86-64 line. If going down an alternate route for bringing 64-bit processing to the mainstream makes sense, you can bet Intel will do it."

"The fact of the matter is that the IA-64 architecture was aimed at a niche market from the start. To put it in Intel’s own words, Itanium was necessary for Intel to design the next-generation of microprocessors. You won’t find Itanium or IA-64 used in the majority of server farms, nor will you find it in most high-end workstations; IA-64 will be reserved for the most demanding of high-end tasks and by definition will be aimed at a very niche market."


<font color=purple>~* K6-2 @ 333MHz *~
I don't need a 'Gigahertz' chip to surf the web just yet ;-)</font color=purple>

I truly loved that article too.
It really shows Intel in the other way.
Ya see, Intel is a twin brothers, where there is the "evil" and "good" twin. The Evil is the damn corporate and masterminds, who care for money only and force the workers to do it against their will of finding technology.
The good Intel is those who really work hard but are rather hidden, from the big "marketting" Intel we always see. If we had more of these hard workers more than marketting, I'm willing to bet the P4 was more than it actually is now.
I am anxious to see what they will do with paying AMD a visit!
But yeah the article is definitly UNBIASED, and it truly helps us see some good Intel stuff and not always bad, it's no wonder Raystonn loves his job there and always does his best to defend it.

--
The other day I heard an explosion from the other side of town.... It was a 486 booting up...

That is an interesting article. What I'm wondering now is just how much does Intel spend on test and verification versus AMD? I would be far more understanding of the overpriced Pentiums if Intel spends billions more per CPU development than AMD. Somehow I still think Intel's prices are too steep.

The article made it seem like Intel spent quite a bit more money on testing. Maybe Ray could comment, if he's around at all.

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