DailyTech - Intel Partners Getting Ready for "Conroe-L"

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Hardware Intel Partners Getting Ready for "Conroe-L"
Sven Olsen (Blog) - June 22, 2006 1:18 PM

34 comment(s) - last by PrinceGaz.. on Jun 23 at 8:06 PM

Conroe-L's BIOS information

Intel Core 2 Solo inches toward your desktop

Intel just internally released some documentation about Conroe-L BIOS specifics. Conroe-L, as we have previously disclosed on DailyTech, is a single-core version of Conroe for value systems.

Intel documentation claims that Conroe-L is not part of the immediate Core 2 family processors, but part of an "extended family" instead. Conroe and Woodcrest are single-die CPUs with two cores per CPU. Kentsfield, Clovertown and Tigerton have two dice per package, but are still considered part of the same family as Conroe and Woodcrest: the processors use the same signatures. Conroe-L apparently has a different processor signature and different model number, but uses the same processor family identification.

The main difference between Conroe-L and the rest of the Conroe family, according to older Intel roadmaps, is the fact that Conroe-L will only be a single core processor. Whether or not this means one core has been disabled is not specified yet, though it is important to note that the Core 2 architecture has a shared cache -- meaning if one core is disabled it does not mean half of the processor cache is disabled.

Intel's latest roadmap still has Conroe-L slated for a Q2'07 launch. The Core 2 Duo version of Conroe is expected to start shipping on the 23rd of July, with the embargo lift shortly after.

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Error

By PedroDaGr8 on 6/22/2006 1:34:05 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
Clovertown and Tigerton have two dice per package

I think that should read to dies per package. Unless intel is getting into the gambling scene

resisting any puns or comments about craps

RE: Error

By PT2006 on 6/22/2006 1:35:47 PM , Rating: 3

You must be new here:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=s...

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RE: Error

By PedroDaGr8 on 6/22/2006 1:44:01 PM , Rating: 2

I'm not sure if you are saying that I am wrong or that the person writing this article is constantly getting it wrong.
From wikipedia (searched for plural of die)
Note c: Dies is used as the plural for die in the sense of a mould; dice as the plural (and increasingly as the singular) in the sense of a small random number generator.

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RE: Error

By PT2006 on 6/22/2006 1:47:01 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I'm not sure if you are saying that I am wrong or that the person writing this article is constantly getting it wrong.

I'm not sure anymore either. I just know it turns into a huge flame war everytime.

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RE: Error

By TomZ on 6/22/2006 1:50:20 PM , Rating: 2

No, "dice" is a commonly-used plural form of "die" in the semiconductor industry. Wikipedia is not authoritative. Do some google searches instead.

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RE: Error

By PedroDaGr8 on 6/22/2006 2:00:50 PM , Rating: 3

Thank you, I did a google search and that was the first thing that came up, I refined it with in the semiconductor industry and you are infact correct, and I apologize to the author for the sort-of insult. Anyways, I also added the semiconductor definition to wikipedias plural page.

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RE: Error

By PT2006 on 6/22/2006 2:02:17 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Anyways, I also added the semiconductor definition to wikipedias plural page.

English is a moving target. Who would have said "I'll Google for it" 10 years ago.

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RE: Error

By PedroDaGr8 on 6/22/2006 2:05:38 PM , Rating: 2

All languages are a moving target, it is just the nature of the necessity of language. It has to be a fluid dynamic system that enables people to understand what is being conveyed, otherwse if it is too rigid then people loose the ability to describe new things. I think that english is just one of the hardest because many times there are two or more words for the same thing (often one of germanic and one of latin origin).

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RE: Error

By etriky on 6/22/2006 1:59:30 PM , Rating: 3

Well, I've worked in semiconductor manufacturing for the last 6 years. Two different companies. This site (and Anandtech) are ONLY places I have ever seen or heard someone refer many die as dice. One die => die. Many die => die. This coming from the CEO's on down to the fab floor. We say a wafer has 200 die. Not 200 dies or dice. It's just 'die'.

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RE: Error

By TomZ on 6/22/2006 2:03:45 PM , Rating: 2

The world is bigger than your company. Google searches for "semiconductor dice," "semiconducor dies," and "semiconductor die" all turn up lots of usages. I would conclude there is not consensus in the industry, and therefore, I think we can't fault DT for their usage of "dice" in this context.

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RE: Error

By dice1111 on 6/22/2006 4:37:54 PM , Rating: 2

Is there a possibility that the authors spell checker automatically replace's the word dies with dice? I know worse replacement have automatically happened to me before. :)

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RE: Error

By TomZ on 6/22/2006 4:47:59 PM , Rating: 4

quote:
Is there a possibility that the authors spell checker automatically replace's the word dies with dice

Not a regular DT reader, are you? Evidence would suggest that a spell checker is not regularly used.

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RE: Error

By matthewcaudle on 6/22/2006 5:27:48 PM , Rating: 2

haha totally

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RE: Error

By matthewcaudle on 6/22/2006 5:27:49 PM , Rating: 2

haha totally

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RE: Error

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 6/22/2006 10:26:08 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Not a regular DT reader, are you? Evidence would suggest that a spell checker is not regularly used.

Especially when it comes to Sven.... :-X But yes DailyTech policy is to use "dice" over "dies." As other people said, that seemed to be the evolving terminology when we started, and we are going to stick with it until everyone says otherwise.

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RE: Error

By PedroDaGr8 on 6/22/2006 2:08:08 PM , Rating: 3

http://www.genus.com/glossary.html

On a glossary of terms on a semiconductor/ADT manufacturers webpage.

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RE: Error

By PedroDaGr8 on 6/22/2006 2:09:01 PM , Rating: 2

Argh I replied to the wrong person, it should refer to etricky not you TomZ. I was showing one other place where it is used

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RE: Error

By TomZ on 6/22/2006 2:24:27 PM , Rating: 3

There's a bug in the DT web site that causes that to happen. I have seen it many times, when you hit reply, it attaches your reply to the wrong message. You can tell if it is right or wrong by looking in the "Replying To" area under where you enter your reply.

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RE: Error

By deeznuts on 6/22/2006 5:26:24 PM , Rating: 2

There is no error. If you notice, if you hit reply it indents your reply a little to the right of the original post. Since his is in line with your post, it is in fact a reply to first post above that is shifted to the left, which is etriky's post.

Notice how mine is shifted to the right of yours.

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RE: Error

By deeznuts on 6/22/2006 5:27:03 PM , Rating: 2

Nevermind, it seems as if I am mistaken, something's changed, or it stops shifting after a couple of replies because it becomes hard to read.

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One Core

By Phynaz on 6/22/2006 2:26:20 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Whether or not this means one core has been disabled is not specified yet, though it is important to note that the Core 2 architecture has a shared cache -- meaning if one core is disabled it does not mean half of the processor cache is disabled.

You can bet your last dollar these are Core Duo chips with a defect in one of the cores. Disable the defective core and sell the chip as a Conroe L. Intel has a long, long history of doing it like this.

RE: One Core

By TomZ on 6/22/2006 2:28:19 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Intel has a long, long history of doing it like this.

Intel and AMD both do. It only makes sense that they would. Otherwise, these chips would just be rejects that go into the trash heap.

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RE: One Core

By Hare on 6/22/2006 2:58:45 PM , Rating: 2

And producing two different chips on two different production lines propably costs enough that most of the chips aren't even defects -> just disabled.

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RE: One Core

By TomZ on 6/22/2006 3:22:41 PM , Rating: 2

Possibly, but on the other hand, semiconductor die space is pretty expensive, so wasting it in that way would also incur a lot of cost.

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RE: One Core

By Hare on 6/22/2006 6:29:13 PM , Rating: 2

Die space is very expensive but so is designing "another" processor (singlecore version) and building the production lines. I don't remember where but I saw pictures of the current Core Solo processor and the single core version was identical in size to the Core Duo. The gains in smaller die footprint are propably small enough to justify just disabling the second core and/or using "faulty" core duos. Intel doesn't have much difficulties producing enough chips to the market so I believe the die size is not as big of an issue as it is with AMD. Just my two cents.

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RE: One Core

By PedroDaGr8 on 6/22/2006 6:01:06 PM , Rating: 2

Intel, AMD, NVidia, and ATi amongst others, all do this. Why do you think that you have chips with varying caches/pipelines/etc but all run the exact same code.

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Stop this "dice" nonsense already!

By androticus on 6/22/2006 8:09:26 PM , Rating: 2

The appropriate plural for the technical term "die" is "dies", not "dice" -- sheesh, this is tech, not gambling. ;)

RE: Stop this "dice" nonsense already!

By TomZ on 6/22/2006 9:05:57 PM , Rating: 2

Suggest to read the comments before adding your own. This has been discussed to death.

BTW, you're not correct.

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RE: Stop this "dice" nonsense already!

By PedroDaGr8 on 6/23/2006 9:00:16 AM , Rating: 2

From one dumbass to another I made this comment earlire and after extensive research:

Die: The term for a single semiconductor chip. Strictly speaking, the plural of die is dice, though engineers have a tendency to use the term die both in the singular and the plural.
http://www.genus.com/glossary.html

Enough on this already

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RE: Stop this "dice" nonsense already!

By vgermax on 6/23/2006 9:49:37 AM , Rating: 2

Quoting the glossary on the website of a small, and largely inconsequential thin film deposition equipment maker (likely compiled by a marketing major) can hardly be considered authoritative or the result of exhaustive research.

From an English language standpoint, none of the online dictionaries (M-W, Cambridge, Encarta, etc.) lists dice as the plural form anything other than a small cube with numbers marked on the side typically used in gambling. The proper plural form of engineering equipment is die, although that is only loosely related to the usage under discussion here.

From a technical language standpoint it should be noted that a search of Intel and AMD's websites yields no matches of dice related to chip technology or fabrication. The only mentions on Intel's site are either people's names or programming examples. Plural forms are either die, or dies. I would be much more inclined to accept Intel or AMD's usage than Genus's.

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RE: Stop this "dice" nonsense already!

By Lazarus Dark on 6/23/2006 10:43:54 AM , Rating: 2

you people have too much free time and not enough cents (sic). who cares, really. DT gives us some of the best tech industry news before any other site i know and getting the news out first means getting it out quick. i for one could care less about spelling errors (or non-errors, whatever) becouse i get they latest news for free. and i am especially sick of this stupid die/dies/dice/dadgumwhateverthehell arguement. drop it and get a life. the only reason i'd ever post about an error is if it confused the meaning of something, and this is not such a case. so read DT and enjoy or go somewhere else where they print all their stories a week later so they can be proofread.

I now feel stupider (sic) for having read this and I feel like a tool for having been compelled to post yet another comment on this redickyulous (sic) arguement.

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RE: Stop this "dice" nonsense already!

By PrinceGaz on 6/23/2006 8:06:40 PM , Rating: 2

Exactly. Intel and AMD engineers don't talk about processor "dice". The people who do (and unfortunately they are the uninformed majority) are those who visit and write for sites like this.

I suggest that everyone gets a good dictionary and looks up the definition of "dies" (plural of "die"), and "dice" (also plural of "die"), and makes up their own mind which is most likely to be correct.

The only argument in favour of "dice" is that the wafer has to be chopped up ("diced") in order to get an individual processor die. Unfortunately "diced" always refers to creating cubes or similar from three-dimensional chopping in cooking, not the two-dimensional "slicing" which is what actually happens to the wafer. So diced is just wrong-- it is actually sliced.

That leaves "dies" which is the plural of a "die" in the context of something which is manufactured. I think it is clear which plural is correct when it comes to talking about CPUs.

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Pi anyone?

By gez on 6/22/2006 1:38:04 PM , Rating: 3

Two dice per core!?! Finally, a random number generator I can get excited about!

RE: Pi anyone?

By PrinceGaz on 6/23/2006 7:51:19 PM , Rating: 2

I want to know how many sides those dice will have. I've got a mage who casts quite a lot of fireballs so I hope they're both d6. A processor with two dedicated d6 dice would seriously speed things up when he lobs a fifteen-dice fireball :)

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