News Intel Apollo Lake CPUs May Die Sooner Than Expected

Sep 9, 2019
1
1
10
Intel refreshes Celeron and Pentium Apollo Lake processors due to degradation concerns.

Intel Apollo Lake CPUs May Die Sooner Than Expected : Read more
You have totally misunderstood this Intel PCN. The current B-1 stepping parts are N3350, N4200, J3355 and J3455. The new F-1 stepping parts will add an "E". Your article is totally wrong.

Launched Q3'2016 https://ark.intel.com/content/www/i...n-processor-n3350-2m-cache-up-to-2-4-ghz.html

Launched Q3'2019 https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...processor-n3350e-2m-cache-up-to-2-40-ghz.html
 
  • Like
Reactions: alextheblue

Soaptrail

Distinguished
Jan 12, 2015
302
96
19,420
Last edited:

King_V

Illustrious
Ambassador
And wasn't Intel just bashing AMD with degradation concerns?

I wonder how much they're grumbling at the irony.

And, that these are likely to fail within the warranty period.

This can't have been a surprise internally. What lunatic decided to use an unconfirmed source to bash AMD with the possibility of slightly shortened lifespan, when their own stuff (admittedly the cheap, low end stuff) was something they'd (presumably before today) realized was likely to fail within warranty?
 
Intel identified an issue with the Low Pin Count (LPC), Real Time Clock (RTC), SD Card interfaces on Intel Celeron N3350, J3355, J3455 processors and Intel Pentium N4200 processor resulting in degradation of these signals at a rate higher than Intel's quality goals after multiple years in service.
Anybody that could maybe explain what these are :
Low Pin Count (LPC),
Real Time Clock (RTC),
SD Card interfaces
and how they could cause a CPU to die?
Intel is saying that only the signal from these degrade would that kill a CPU?
 
Those are all lines that lead directly into the 14nm CPU die, which simply haven't been designed with enough surge or voltage resistance to last through the warranty period--exactly the same problem as their 65nm Sandy Bridge 60-series chipsets had with the SATA II ports that died. Many of those died within months.

For decades, I only saw one dead Intel CPU--a 350nm Pentium I which would only run when the L1 cache was disabled. And then I saw many dead 130nm Northwood Pentium IVs. More recently I'm seeing a lot of degrading 22nm Haswell chips with the fully integrated VRM. So Intel suggesting that AMD might have future problems just because they are at 7nm is ridiculous--it's all about design, in this case how well protected the delicate internals are from any high voltage I/O lines.

At 14nm, even the 3.3v SD cards use is "high voltage."
 

alextheblue

Distinguished
This can't have been a surprise internally. What lunatic decided to use an unconfirmed source to bash AMD with the possibility of slightly shortened lifespan, when their own stuff (admittedly the cheap, low end stuff) was something they'd (presumably before today) realized was likely to fail within warranty?
Agreed.

Side note, although it may be "low end", these chips often end up in non-PC applications like a NAS that are expected to run 24/7 for years. Whoops!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Soaptrail