Then, use a microscope to observe the internal transistor structure.
Finding hundreds of thousands of transistors would require a great deal of effort and time. Fortunately, the problem was identified in one morning.
The transistors inside have a problem.
The structure of transistors is mostly divided and combined into regions. Some are connected in parallel, and some are connected in series.
Can the transistors inside a chip break? The answer is yes.
The replica chip is a 1:1 replica, which means that the pattern drawn after reverse engineering the 286 is placed on a lithography machine to produce it.
The fact that transistors are now failing indicates that our manufacturing process still needs improvement.
Putting the manufacturing process aside for now, let's just say the transistor is broken. Can it be repaired? Theoretically, yes, but the cost of repairing it would be enough to buy several good chips.
It would require reinstalling the lithography machine, modifying the circuitry, and making adjustments, etc. Repairing just one CPU is not worthwhile, as the energy consumption would be a huge sum.
Therefore, chip architects also consider this issue when designing chips.
If a transistor inside a chip is damaged, does that mean the entire chip will stop working?
This was the case for the early models, but as chips became more and more complex with the increasing number of transistors, designers used a redundant solution to bypass damaged transistors and continue operation.
The principle is the same as that of a mechanical hard drive. When a mechanical hard drive develops bad sectors, it cannot be repaired and can only be hidden. The good sectors are kept in use by reducing the capacity.
The same applies to chips. If a region is damaged, the chip can bypass the damaged transistor and continue operating after identification.
This is similar to buying a quad-core CPU, but if the crystal fails during use, the chip will hide one core, allowing you to use three cores.
You won't be able to tell the difference when you test it on your own computer; it will always show four cores.
Specialized equipment is required to obtain the results.
This phenomenon occurs when a computer gradually slows down or even lags after one or two years of use. You'll be advised to upgrade this or that, even though you don't need to upgrade the CPU. However, some transistors in the CPU may already be damaged.
Upgrading the memory and hard drive to improve computer speed will result in a noticeable improvement in smoothness, but when running programs, you can hear the fan spinning frantically.
Opening File Explorer will also reveal that CPU utilization is between 70% and 90%, and can even spike to 100%.
Congratulations, there's an 80% chance there's an internal problem with your CPU. But you can't find the cause, and you can still continue using it, even if it's a bit slow and laggy, everything else will be normal.
This phenomenon is unavoidable, but with time and research and development, subsequent chips will be able to resolve this issue during factory testing.
When manufacturers test batches, they find chips with quality problems and downgrade them.
In other words, chips of the same model will be classified using letters.
To give a simple example, the i5 quad-core 4600 chip indicates the fourth generation of the i5 family. It has four cores, a certain number of threads, etc.
However, the 4600 will have model numbers such as 4600S, 4600i, and 4600k, and the prices will also be different.
This indicates that this chip had a slight defect when it left the factory, with a problem with the crystal inside. After inspection, it was downgraded, and the difference was indicated by a suffix letter.
These minor flaws cannot be counted in the yield rate. However, strictly speaking, they cannot be treated as scrap either, so if the data is not significantly different, they are sold at a lower price.
Anyway, very few people can use the full power of their personal computer's CPU; they're lucky if they can use 30%.
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