"Think of a worker at a chip fab who finds themself with a load of microprocessors that have failed QA because they become unreliable when they're run above a certain clockspeed.
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"Think of a worker at a chip fab who finds themself with a load of microprocessors that have failed QA because they become unreliable when they're run above a certain clockspeed. If that worker knows enough about the downstream customers' processes, they can contact one of those customers and offer the chips for use in a lower-end product, which can save the fab millions and make millions more for the customer.
"This just happened to Apple, who seized upon a lot of "binned" microprocessors that were headed to the landfill and designed the Macbook Neo (a new, cheap, low-end laptop) around them, salvaging the defective chips by running them at lower speeds. The result? Apple's most successful laptop in years, which has now sold so well that Apple has exhausted the supply of defective chips and is scrambling to fill orders:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/08/process-knowledge-vs-bosses/@rayckeith haven't Apple — and lots of other people — being doing that for years? Using processors that fail testing for high-end as lower-end? They plan things this way. It's not some fab employee having a bright idea.
Just-so stories are exhausting.
@cstross
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@rayckeith haven't Apple — and lots of other people — being doing that for years? Using processors that fail testing for high-end as lower-end? They plan things this way. It's not some fab employee having a bright idea.
Just-so stories are exhausting.
@cstross
@Colman @rayckeith Yeah, it is just binning, and AFAIK, been a part of the process since the earliest foundries.
Apple always gets such breathless praise, it is fucking exhausting.
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@rayckeith haven't Apple — and lots of other people — being doing that for years? Using processors that fail testing for high-end as lower-end? They plan things this way. It's not some fab employee having a bright idea.
Just-so stories are exhausting.
@cstross
@Colman @rayckeith Yeah, this is an asinine take. Every company who has ever manufactured anything does this. Single sided floppies were double sided floppies that failed verification on one side.
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@rayckeith haven't Apple — and lots of other people — being doing that for years? Using processors that fail testing for high-end as lower-end? They plan things this way. It's not some fab employee having a bright idea.
Just-so stories are exhausting.
@cstross
@Colman @rayckeith Apple has been binning chips since at least the dongle-style AppleTV was released. Other manufactures for longer.
It's basic manufacturing process. When the defect rates of parts with built-in redundancy is known, they become just another set of tolerances for the manufacturing process, rather than waste. I think this is a good thing.
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@Colman @rayckeith Yeah, this is an asinine take. Every company who has ever manufactured anything does this. Single sided floppies were double sided floppies that failed verification on one side.
@jwz @Colman @rayckeith I read somewhere about a US company ordering parts from Japan & saying they'd accept a 10% failure rate.
They were delivered with a note "we don't know why you wanted 10% failed, so we've put them in a separate box".
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"Think of a worker at a chip fab who finds themself with a load of microprocessors that have failed QA because they become unreliable when they're run above a certain clockspeed. If that worker knows enough about the downstream customers' processes, they can contact one of those customers and offer the chips for use in a lower-end product, which can save the fab millions and make millions more for the customer.
"This just happened to Apple, who seized upon a lot of "binned" microprocessors that were headed to the landfill and designed the Macbook Neo (a new, cheap, low-end laptop) around them, salvaging the defective chips by running them at lower speeds. The result? Apple's most successful laptop in years, which has now sold so well that Apple has exhausted the supply of defective chips and is scrambling to fill orders:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/08/process-knowledge-vs-bosses/@rayckeith I guess Doctorow's heart is generally in the right place, but this is not how Apple works with their chip manufacturers. Also, these chips were binned because of one of the cores being defective, not because of speed issues.
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@Colman @rayckeith Apple has been binning chips since at least the dongle-style AppleTV was released. Other manufactures for longer.
It's basic manufacturing process. When the defect rates of parts with built-in redundancy is known, they become just another set of tolerances for the manufacturing process, rather than waste. I think this is a good thing.
@cora @rayckeith of course it's good but it's not some new thing related to the Neo.
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@Colman @rayckeith Apple has been binning chips since at least the dongle-style AppleTV was released. Other manufactures for longer.
It's basic manufacturing process. When the defect rates of parts with built-in redundancy is known, they become just another set of tolerances for the manufacturing process, rather than waste. I think this is a good thing.
@cora @Colman @rayckeith I remember reading years ago a tale of an electronics student that had to design a circuit that required resistors with matching values (like 0.5% or less within each other), and their advisor suggested designing the circuit around not the nominal value, but with a few percent offset because the resistors close to the nominal value were sold at premium price, while the ones less precise were sold at lower prices
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@cora @rayckeith of course it's good but it's not some new thing related to the Neo.
@Colman @rayckeith Yes, sorry, FSR my response tagged you as well and gave the impression that I was disputing your take. I was not, sorry for the confusion
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@Colman @rayckeith Yes, sorry, FSR my response tagged you as well and gave the impression that I was disputing your take. I was not, sorry for the confusion
@cora sorry, I just get cranky when that guy gets fed into my stream.
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@rayckeith I guess Doctorow's heart is generally in the right place, but this is not how Apple works with their chip manufacturers. Also, these chips were binned because of one of the cores being defective, not because of speed issues.
@tsturm @rayckeith always beware of people who confidently hold forth on topics you understand but they clearly don't have a fucking clue about. I always assume they're doing the same on topics I don't know about — cf Elon Musk.
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"Think of a worker at a chip fab who finds themself with a load of microprocessors that have failed QA because they become unreliable when they're run above a certain clockspeed. If that worker knows enough about the downstream customers' processes, they can contact one of those customers and offer the chips for use in a lower-end product, which can save the fab millions and make millions more for the customer.
"This just happened to Apple, who seized upon a lot of "binned" microprocessors that were headed to the landfill and designed the Macbook Neo (a new, cheap, low-end laptop) around them, salvaging the defective chips by running them at lower speeds. The result? Apple's most successful laptop in years, which has now sold so well that Apple has exhausted the supply of defective chips and is scrambling to fill orders:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/08/process-knowledge-vs-bosses/@rayckeith Cory Doctorow is a bright guy, and often has good insights, but this is at best a really misleading representation of binning.
Reading it in context, it’s part of a much larger post about all sorts of stuff. I just don’t think anyone can write competently about so much so quickly. It’s a curse of the internet that people feel pressure to produce so much stuff.
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"Think of a worker at a chip fab who finds themself with a load of microprocessors that have failed QA because they become unreliable when they're run above a certain clockspeed. If that worker knows enough about the downstream customers' processes, they can contact one of those customers and offer the chips for use in a lower-end product, which can save the fab millions and make millions more for the customer.
"This just happened to Apple, who seized upon a lot of "binned" microprocessors that were headed to the landfill and designed the Macbook Neo (a new, cheap, low-end laptop) around them, salvaging the defective chips by running them at lower speeds. The result? Apple's most successful laptop in years, which has now sold so well that Apple has exhausted the supply of defective chips and is scrambling to fill orders:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/08/process-knowledge-vs-bosses/It's worth noting that unlike say, Intel, there is no outside second market for binned Apple CPUs. It's Apple or the scrap heap. So a lower-end product that can use the downrated chips is simply common sense.
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