Unit 5 analysis 1: Pentium flaw Aaron Mancias April 16 2016 Professor Amos
The CPU is a central processing unit brains of the computer aka microprocessor or processor. It executes a sequence of stored instructions called a program containing millions of transistors interconnected by smell aluminum wires (busses). They carry various signals addresses and data (3 types of data bus, address bus), control bus. The flaw was discovered in 1994, a division error in the Pentium chip by Intel. only told to people who worked inside the company and nobody else .the same month a professor of mathematics at Lynchburg college , Virginia by the name of Dr. Thomas A nicely notices a small difference in the two sets of numbers , rechecking everything he comes to the conclusion ( Pentium chip) eliminating all other causes, 5 month in total . The flaw of the chip cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars and Intel appeared as it was hiding a sinister secret. Intel’s response was very unprofessional and that’s what lead there minor problem into beings so chaotic and costworthy. Basically. DR. Thomas nicely contacted them told them about their problem. Intel duplicates the error and confirms it but do nothing from there also ignoring doctor nicely and never to bother to look back at it. This lead dr. nicely to call up some of his friend such as Richard smith and in two days this minor flaw blew out of proportion. My opinion on how Intel handles the situation is that it was very childish they knew there was a flaw so fix it, every problem has a snowball effect once left without fixing and that’s exactly what happened here and cost those millions of dollars.