Post #1665961

2026-04-09 14:01 UTC

The ‘collective intelligence’ around the MacBook Neo chip is going insane. Now, the processors ‘were heading for a landfill’ if apple didn’t use them in the MacBook. Uhhh, no, they use chips in iPads, Apple TVs… Also the way people talk about binning reminds me of how people say a lobster is ‘less evolved’ than some other species. Binning is the process of making one chip and then testing and using the chips according to their capabilities. Intel would make 1 chip and then sell it at various different megahertzs. They would put some into the fastest bin, some in the next bin down, etc. They’re all “binned”. Or sony’s cell processor. Designed with 9 cores, but they had yield issues. So they said fuck it, it’s 8 core now. If they got a rare 9 working core chip, I think they just disabled one so they could all go in the same single bin. Are those chips ‘binned’? There’s one pool of chips, but they aren’t using all their designed cores. And Sony certainly wasn’t going to just give up and not make a PS3 and toss everything in the landfill. Gawrsh. No, they made the hard choice they had to and moved on. People are writing about apple re-using chips like they invented. Get a grip.

Replies (1)

@wtfwtf_ok@hachyderm.io 2026-05-08 20:15

Macrumors writes: "A fresh manufacturing run for the A18 Pro would yield fully functional chips rather than defective ones, raising the per-unit cost". No! The defective chips *cost exactly as much to make as the fully functional chips*. The problem is that defective chips are *worth less* to you, possibly nothing. Running chips at a lower clock rate or disabling a defective core is not "binning". "Binning" is the act of deciding, at a product marketing level, that you're going to have a 7 core variant and an 8 core variant and that you're not going to sell anything with 6 cores, you're going to throw those away. But-- HEAR ME NOW- you the consumer have no fucking idea that the chip was actually designed with 9 cores and they barely get ANY that have all 9 cores working. They just sell 'em as 8s. Binning just means 1 chip gets manufactured, but you sell N skus.

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