Product Reliability Methods to Enable High Performance CPU's.

Over the past several years, Intel released five generations of Core™ processors with increasing performance. Some performance improvements are due to transistor and process enhancements. There are also opportunities for performance and reliability co-optimization through the product life cycle (PLC). In this paper, we report on co-optimization methods in the post-Si and external phases of the PLC: improved use condition insights from telemetry; novel stress assessments; reliability control through manufacturing; and partnering with personal computer (PC) designers. These methods contributed to substantial improvement in CPU frequency without compromising reliability.