In <C0nAu6.7Hs@austin.ibm.com> oquinn@elder.austin.ibm.com (Jim O) writes:
>I need some help in identifying some bugs that might be present in a 80486DX-25. A friend of mine told me that the early 486 chips had a TLB problems. He said that the SX308 rev (step?) had this problem.
>Is this true? Does the SX308 rev have any other "bugs"?
>If anyone has any info, please e-mail me. Thanks in advance....
Intel chips NEVER have bugs. Their LAMS (Liberal Arts Marketing Slime) have
made sure of that.
However, there is a 486 "errata" list available under non-disclosure. Some
items are bugs they promise to fix, others they left alone and decided to
update the doc to reflect this. I no longer have access to it, but it used
to have a dozen or so items. A few of them were quite serious, and required
hardware or software workarounds.
Maybe even this much info violates the non-disclose. So sue me.
The bugs varied significantly between mask steps. Intel seems to do a good
job in fixing them with each new mask. This is in stark contrast to the bozos
at some other IC companies which shall remain nameless since the marketplace
has already taken care of them.
From your address I'd bet that you won't need to get a new NDA to get this
info from Intel. Someone at your site must already have it.
One of Michael Slater's hot buttons in Microprocessor Report has been to try
to get vendors to release their bug lists. As of a year ago, when I stopped
designing with the 486, Intel hadn't done so. Perhaps this has changed.
Perhaps hell has frozen over. But then, I never thought the Soviet Union
would simply disappear, so stranger things have happened.
