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NT1110
Unit 5 Analysis 1: Pentium Flaw

The Pentium flaw began to be noticed on a public level in 1994. This was a huge flaw considering that the Pentium processor was used in 80% of the personal computers worldwide. The microprocessor is the heart of the computer and controls all of the operations and calculations that take place.
“Flaws are not uncommon in complicated integrated circuits and most of them go unnoticed by the user” (Fleddermann, 2004). However, the Pentium flaw was very different. It caused incorrect answers when preforming double-precision arithmetic and was easily detected by the users. The first time that it was noticed, was by a university researcher. He noticed that the results of some of his calculations were incorrect.
They began to do test on whether or not the microprocessor was flawed. “Using spreadsheet software, the user was able to take the number 4,195,835, multiply it by 3,145,727, and then divide that result by 3,145,727. As we all know from elementary math, when a number is multiplied and then divided by the same number, the result should be the original number. In this example, the result should be 4,195,835. However with the flaw, the result of the calculation was 4,195,579” (Crothers, 1994).
Intel originally denied that there was even a flaw. Only after it become clear to the public that there was actually a flaw, did they acknowledge there was a flaw but it was a small and insignificant. They would only replace it if the user could prove that they needed an unflawed processor. This caused IBM to immediately stop all sales of their computers that featured the Pentium chip, forcing Intel to agree to replace all flawed microprocessors with the new unflawed version, but only upon request.
Intel was aware of the flaw long before it was noticed and surfaced in the press. They had already fixed the problem and created an updated version on the chip. However, they continued to sell the flawed chip until the new version was...
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