The End of an Athlon / 速龙的终结

When I was researching the mess related to strange and poorly documented CPUID bits in the Athlon MP and XP processors, I had to swap a lot of CPUs. This was uneventful in most cases… but only most. When I removed the heatsink from one unlucky Athlon XP, the processor looked like this:

当我在研究 Athlon MP 和 XP 处理器中那些奇怪且缺乏文档记录的 CPUID 位时，我不得不频繁更换 CPU。大多数情况下这都很顺利……但并非总是如此。当我从一颗不幸的 Athlon XP 上拆下散热器时，处理器变成了这样：

A chunk of AMD Athlon silicon is just gone. And this is what the heatsink looked like, with a piece of the CPU glued to it.

一块 AMD Athlon 的硅片就这样消失了。而散热器看起来是这样的，上面粘着一块 CPU 的碎片。

There are two interesting things about this. One is that the CPU worked just fine until a good chunk of it came off. The other is that removing the heatsink did not need any particularly excessive force, although some heatsinks do have a tendency to get stuck on. Based on the shape of the “extracted” piece of silicon, I suspect there was a relatively long and straight micro-crack in the silicon which did not noticeably impact the operation. But when force was applied, the micro-crack gave way, and then a whole big chunk of silicon came off.

关于这一点有两个有趣的地方。一是这颗 CPU 在掉落一大块硅片之前一直工作正常。二是拆卸散热器时并没有使用特别大的力气，尽管有些散热器确实容易粘住。根据“提取”出的硅片形状，我怀疑硅片内部原本就有一条相对较长且笔直的微裂纹，它并没有明显影响运行。但当施加外力时，微裂纹处发生了断裂，导致一大块硅片脱落。

Notice how the right-hand side of the gouge in the CPU is very straight, whereas the left-hand side shows typical fracture marks. It is notable that around 2000, both Intel and AMD used flip-chip PGA packaging in an effort to provide better cooling (something both companies struggled with as the TDP of the processors quickly shot past 50W and approached 70-80W). Both companies, especially Intel, gave up on this type of packaging relatively quickly. Intel only used it for some PIII models and switched to lidded CPUs for the P4 line, as well as the PIII-S processors. AMD used flip-chip packaging for PGA Athlons but not for Opterons.

请注意 CPU 缺口的右侧非常平直，而左侧则显示出典型的断裂痕迹。值得注意的是，在 2000 年左右，英特尔和 AMD 都采用了倒装芯片（flip-chip）PGA 封装，试图提供更好的散热效果（随着处理器 TDP 迅速超过 50W 并接近 70-80W，两家公司都在散热问题上挣扎）。两家公司，尤其是英特尔，都很快放弃了这种封装方式。英特尔仅在部分 PIII 型号上使用过，随后在 P4 系列以及 PIII-S 处理器上改用了带顶盖（lidded）的 CPU。AMD 在 PGA Athlon 上使用了倒装芯片封装，但在 Opteron 上则没有。

The exposed silicon was a little bit too fragile and required assemblers to install heatsinks very very carefully—if installing a heatsink applied pressure that was too uneven, the silicon would crack. Many vintage flip-chip CPUs have chipped corners, although that usually does not affect operation. Processors with lidded packaging still provided very good cooling, but compared to CPUs with exposed silicon they proved much sturdier and far less susceptible to mechanical damage. Especially Intel’s pin-less LGA processors are quite sturdy and not at all prone to mechanical damage, although the weak spot simply moved to the motherboard socket instead.

裸露的硅片过于脆弱，要求组装人员在安装散热器时必须极其小心——如果安装散热器时施加的压力不均匀，硅片就会破裂。许多老式倒装芯片 CPU 的边角都有缺口，尽管这通常不影响运行。带顶盖的处理器依然能提供很好的散热，但与裸露硅片的 CPU 相比，它们更坚固，且不易受到机械损伤。特别是英特尔的无针脚 LGA 处理器非常坚固，完全不会受到机械损伤，尽管其弱点仅仅是转移到了主板插槽上。