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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
- Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-cv!hp-pcd!hpcvca!hpcvccl.cv.hp.com!scott
- From: scott@hpcvccl.cv.hp.com (Scott Linn)
- Subject: Re: What's the deal? My chip says "SX-25"; Norton says "SX-33"
- Message-ID: <1993Jan5.182447.25230@hpcvca.cv.hp.com>
- Sender: nobody@hpcvca.cv.hp.com
- Nntp-Posting-Host: hpcvccl.cv.hp.com
- Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Corvallis, Oregon USA
- References: <1icegqINN7vl@savoy.cc.williams.edu>
- Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 18:24:47 GMT
- Lines: 23
-
- 93gke@williams.edu (oldwanda) writes:
- : If this is true, then how can vendors push the 25Mhz chips to 33Mhz?
- : Wouldn't they fail at the higher speeds since they were slow in
- : testing?
-
- Well, the vendor may have down-graded their chips (the chip may actually
- work at 33MHz, but they labeled it at 25MHz because they needed more of
- that bin).
-
- More likely is that (as another poster mentioned) there is a guardband
- built into the test. Note that the IC must work at or above 25MHz, at
- (possibly) 110C, 4.5V, etc. If the board vendor knows that the case temp
- won't go above a certain amount (good airflow, heatsink, etc.), and knows
- that his supplies will be, say, 5.0V +/- 1% (not likely), then he could
- push the chip higher in frequency with no ill effects.
-
- Then again, the manufacturer probably put some 25MHz parts in his 33MHz board,
- found that they worked, and shipped it. :-)
-
- Not good.
-
- Scott Linn
- scott@hpcvccl.cv.hp.com
-