Why are CPU pins so fragile and why haven’t they been designed to make the pins hard to deform?
In: Technology
resistance is a function of length between 2 points and cross section area. choice is to reduce both to reduce heat dissipation.
most cpus are never handled by an end user. custom PCs make up for a tiny fraction of all the PCs and even in custom builds migrating the CPU more than once is rare.
Are they fragile? I think the pins are quite rigid. I have old CPUs from the 90s that are still perfect. Modern CPUs are 300 to 500 dollar devices. Treat them as such.
For your computer to run the way you like you need lots of connections as close together as you can get them.
The reason cpu pins are so fragile is because the cheapest and easiest way to make these connections is to pull metal really thin to make the circuit, the metals that work the best for conducting are also fairly soft. So a very thin strand of soft metal will be easy to damage.
The reason we haven’t poured money into research into making stronger pins is the same reason we don’t pour money into research into fixes for things that are working well enough as is. Usually a need needs to be present to push for research.
Would you rather buy a 4.6ghz 8 core for $175, but you have to be very careful when you go through all the effort to take it out, or 4.6ghz 8 core, for $350, but you can drop it short distances? (Less than 3 inches)
So far we have made it easier to be careful with the sockets and CPUs, but none advise you drop them even an inch
Newer CPUs are totally flat on the pin side, and the socket has little back/bent spring contactors. The socket is still fragile, but you can whip the cpu like a frizbee a few times and it still works fine.
I assume..
ELI5 : This is a fake problem.
I never had pins on my CPU.
My secret? I pay Intel a good premium to move them to the motherboard.
Really, there is no good answer about pins fragility.
They shouldn’t be stronger, or flexible, or orange.
They shouldn’t be.
If you look at an Intel CPU, you will see pads instead of pins.
This is a sensible solution.
If you drop the cpu, there are no pins to bend.
Another solution is soldering, like Apple does.
It becomes very hard to swap the CPU, but it is never needed inside of a laptop.
AMD is the brand with the pins.
AMD should find an alternative to the pins problem because it is a fake issue that can be totally avoided.
If you want an original idea, I would love to see a CPU that uses optic fiber, or magnets, for the interface.
Would it be good? I don’t know.
Would it be better than pins? Probably.
You need pins to be really small so it’s hard to make them strong, with PGA it wasn’t that bad since they inserted into holes on the socket so they were kinda stronger but with LGA you need pins to be a bit springy so they make good contact but that also makes them a lot more fragile.
Engineers do the best they can but they can’t make EVERYTHING child proof. Sometimes there just has to be an adult in the room.
They actually tried, but the solution was to shift the risk from the CPU manufacturer to the motherboard manufacturer.
That’s why all current CPU sockets have the pins in them and the CPUs do not.
The risk is still there, but it’s on the motherboard manufacturer, not the CPU manufacturer.
I can’t speak for AMD processors but Intel has fully transitioned from Pin Grid Array (PGA) to a Land Grid Array (LGA) which has the pins on the CPU socket instead of the processor.
Smaller chips like GDDR for video cards uses a Ball Grid Array (BGA) which is a series of tiny, rounded ball pins.
Latest Answers