Stepping level
The term Stepping ( stɛping, dt » graduation, graduation " ) - called at AMD and Core Revision - referred to in microprocessors successive versions of a processor of the same processor type. The Stepping is the most accurate visible to the consumer name of a processor type, or the version of a processor type. Within a processor generation there may be several versions of Stepping.
Background
While new types of processors within a processor family change most basic, meaningful to the user data of the processor (for example, clock frequency, instruction set, number and type of arithmetic units, thermal dissipation), are in change of steppings usually changed only internal details but the main features of the processor remains unchanged.
The stepping may also simultaneously be the name of the exposure mask used in the manufacture (s), however this is rarely precisely known outside of the manufacturer.
Example, can eliminate errors, changes in the manufacturing process such as minimizing the structural width or measures which are carried out to improve the production yield at a change of steppings. These changes are not visible to the user. Sometimes with a Stepping new interfaces or internal functions added, this happens mostly in anticipation of the next generation of processors. However, all steppings in common is that processors of the same type but different steppings within the specified operating parameters are in principle interchangeable. By eliminating errors but this is not entirely true: Error in specific steppings may require ( in particular software side) corresponding countermeasures in the system so that a regression of the steppings could be difficult if the countermeasures are not implemented. Some errors cause a restriction compared to the originally specified and only reached with later Stepping operating parameters (eg, the clock frequency ), so here compromising interchangeability are also possible.
It also happens that different processor types simultaneously available from the same processor family have the same stepping. This may indicate that these processors are made in the same manufacturing process with the same exposure masks, tested after production on performance or other properties such as bad arithmetic units that are then sold accordingly as different processor types. Thus, for example, a processor of a family, which is available as a single core processor or as a multi-core processor, are always made with four cores. After the production of the individual dies can be tested for the number of viable seeds. This four functional cores are called quad-core processor, those with two or three functional cores than dual-core processor or possibly three- core processor (such as AMD's K10 - generation), and this sold with a functional core as a single core processor, although all processors of this family originally manufactured with four cores were. Nor can you copies of a processor according to the production to the maximum clock frequency at which they can be safely operated, tested (due to manufacturing variations can these vary between individual specimens of the same production line ) and then sold with these determined maximum clock frequency. Such an approach reduces production cost, since only one production line is used, and increases the yield, because partially defective or not fully efficient copies can still be sold.
For users who want to overclock their processors, differences between the various steppings are often discussed in forums, and certain steppings that have been identified by experiments to be particularly overclockable be purchased preferably within these user groups. However, it can not demonstrate statistically whether a disputed Stepping "X" really better to overclock than the Stepping "Y", because there are no important background information from the manufacturer side as a rule.