pentium flaw course hero what did intel do to satisfy customers about the flaw?

by Karelle Turcotte 7 min read

The flaw was found where the division result returned by the Pentium microprocessor was off by approximately sixty-one parts per million. Once Intel pinpointed the flaw, their solution was to keep the information within the company and not disclose the information to the public.

Full Answer

How long should the introduction of the Intel Pentium chip flaw be?

The challenging diagnosis for Accounting for the Intel Pentium Chip Flaw and the management of information is needed to be provided. However, introduction should not be longer than 6-7 lines in a paragraph. As the most important objective is to convey the most important message for to the reader.

How serious is the Intel floating-point flaw?

At this point, Intel acknowledged the floating-point flaw, but claimed that it was not serious and would not affect most users. Intel offered to replace processors to users who could prove that they were affected.

What is the history of the Pentium FPU glitch?

The story first appeared in the press on November 7, 1994, in an article in Electronic Engineering Times, "Intel fixes a Pentium FPU glitch" by Alexander Wolfe, and was subsequently picked up by CNN in a segment aired on November 22. It was also reported on by the New York Times and the Boston Globe, making the front page in the latter.

What happened to the Pentium FDIV bug?

Pentium FDIV bug. In December 1994, Intel recalled the defective processors. In January 1995, Intel announced "a pre-tax charge of $475 million against earnings, ostensibly the total cost associated with replacement of the flawed processors.".

What was Intel's original proposal on the flawed chips?

Intel's plan was to release the chip and just fix the flaw on the future processors. This action would make Intel a great deal of profit, no one would find out, and once the processors sold out, the fixed ones would be released and everything would be normal.

What is Pentium processor how it evolved?

Pentium, family of microprocessors developed by Intel Corp. Introduced in 1993 as the successor to Intel's 80486 microprocessor, the Pentium contained two processors on a single chip and about 3.3 million transistors.

What was the processing speed of the original Pentium chip?

The first chips ran at 60 and 66 MHz clock speeds, used 3.1 million transistors, had 4 GB of addressable memory, and measured 16.7×17.6 mm.

What is the difference between Pentium and Intel?

Though both Pentium and Core devices have seen major changes in available power, Intel generally equips the Core brand with more powerful processors than the equivalent Pentium or Celeron devices, though they often use the same basic processor technology.

What is Intel Pentium used for?

The Pentium is a widely-used personal computer microprocessor from the Intel Corporation. First offered in 1993, the Pentium quickly replaced Intel's 486 microprocessor as the microchip-of-choice in manufacturing a personal computer.

How good is the Intel Pentium?

A good basic processor that hits the sweet spot of price-to-performance for most users' needs. Unlike Intel's cheaper Celerons, it is dual core, and has more cache than the high end of the current Celeron lineup, which are only slightly cheaper.

What happened to Intel Pentium?

In 2006, the name briefly disappeared from Intel's technology roadmaps, only to re-emerge in 2007. In 1998, Intel introduced the Celeron brand for low-priced processors. With the 2006 introduction of the Intel Core brand as the company's new flagship line of processors, the Pentium series was to be discontinued.

What Gen is Intel Pentium?

Actual generation: 12.

When did Intel fix the Pentium FPU glitch?

The story first appeared in the press on November 7, 1994, in an article in Electronic Engineering Times, "Intel fixes a Pentium FPU glitch" by Alexander Wolfe, and was subsequently picked up by CNN in a segment aired on November 22.

What is the Pentium FDIV bug?

The Pentium FDIV bug is a hardware bug affecting the floating-point unit (FPU) of the early Intel Pentium processors. Because of the bug, the processor would return incorrect binary floating point results when dividing certain pairs of high-precision numbers. The bug was discovered in 1994 by Thomas R. Nicely, a professor of mathematics at Lynchburg College. Missing values in a lookup table used by the FPU's floating-point division algorithm led to calculations acquiring small errors. While these errors would in most use-cases only occur rarely and result in small deviations from the correct output values, in certain circumstances the errors can occur frequently and lead to more significant deviations.

What CPUs are affected by FDIV?

The 120 MHz P54C and P54CQS CPUs are unaffected.

When did Intel replace Pentium processors?

The growing dissatisfaction with Intel's response led to the company offering to replace all flawed Pentium processors on request on December 20. On January 17, 1995 , Intel announced "a pre-tax charge of $475 million against earnings, ostensibly the total cost associated with replacement of the flawed processors.".

When was the FPU bug discovered?

The bug was discovered in 1994 by Thomas R. Nicely, a professor of mathematics at Lynchburg College. Missing values in a lookup table used by the FPU's floating-point division algorithm led to calculations acquiring small errors.

When did Intel recall the processors?

In December 1994 , Intel recalled the defective processors in what was the first full recall of a computer chip. In January 1995, Intel announced "a pre-tax charge of $475 million against earnings, ostensibly the total cost associated with replacement of the flawed processors.".

Did the IBM bug affect Intel?

However, although most independent estimates found that the bug would have a very limited impact on most users, it caused significant negative press for the company. IBM paused the sale of PCs containing Intel CPUs, and Intel's stock price decreased significantly.

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