Intel repurposes scrap dies to expand CPU supply

Demand in the CPU market remains intense, with AMD and Intel sold out of inventory and lead times stretching into weeks. Intel is responding by repurposing dies from the edge of silicon wafers that would otherwise become scrap, turning them into products that customers are willing to buy. The approach also gives some flawed SKUs a path to market instead of being discarded.

When Intel produces a Xeon 6 ‘Granite Rapids’ CPU on the Intel 3 node, the CPU compute die can accommodate up to 44 cores per die, but some are disabled for yield and power reasons. When the yield fails, these compute dies are repurposed into SKUs with lower core counts, because manufacturing the die already carries a cost and wasting it would mean losing those resources. Under normal conditions, dies that do not achieve satisfactory yield on the Intel 3 production line would be discarded if they cannot provide a reasonable number of working cores.

During one of the highest-ever recorded CPU shortages, Intel is instead packaging defective or scrap dies into lower-class SKUs and selling them to customers that need any available CPU supply. Customers are buying parts that in a less constrained market would typically be thrown away. Even dies from the wafer edge, with only a few working P-Cores, can now be packaged into a CPU that a hyperscaler would integrate into its offering.