Question about Palomino & Claw/Sledgehammer

[Muerto]

In regards to what was posted in the web news section today, AMD Palomino and Hammer info. What is isotopically pure silicon? Is this what was supposed to make the Palomino run ultra cool? I'd hate to think howmuch heat a T-Bird would produce at 1533MHz. Thanks.

 

[glenn1]

from what i've heard, using isotopically pure Si is supposed to have about 60% better heat transfer properties than regular silicon. I remember seeing a demonstration at one point of a Palomino prototype running at 1500Mhz, with no fan, just a heatsink... does that give you an idea?

 

[MikeyP]

Palomino will not have the improved silicon, look at ace's hardware.

 

[jamison]

Dang, that stuff sounds cool though

 

[SammyBoy]

I WANT IT NOW!

 

[Jothaxe]

<< What is isotopically pure silicon? >>



The most common form of silicon found in a substrate is Si[28] ... this occurs when the number of neutrons in a silcon atom equals the number of protons. Also fairly common are Si[29] and Si[30] which have one and two more neutrons respectively.

It so happens that when Si forms a single-crystal lattice, there is a slight non-uniformity introduced by the fact that the individual atoms are not all identical. By removing the Si[29] and Si[30] isotopes, this irregularity is brought much closer to zero. The beautiful thing about this is that this purer lattice can have FAR GREATER themal conductivity, which means that heat dissipation becomes a much simpler task than before. Of course this means you can increase clock speed without running into problems so quickly, which is why anybody cares.

 

[Degenerate]

is this stuff newly dicovered?

 

[Muerto]

glenn1

I remember seeing that too. I began drooling at the thought of 1.5GHz w/o a fan. But I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer. AMD might be saving that for Thoroughbred.

 

[Soccerman]

guys, considering the AXIA core can run at high frequencies without pumping up the voltage, and considering the fair decrease in power requirements and heat output the Palomino already will has, I don't think AMD needs to use this pure silicon.

imagine though, the Thoroughbred with .13 micron AND the pure silicon! that things gonna be sweet.