Post #2609305
2026-05-08 20:15 UTC
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.
Replies (1)
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@wtfwtf_ok@hachyderm.io 2026-05-08 20:31
(I should clarify I'm not saying the A18pro or some specific chip has 9 cores, I'm just giving an example of binning.) The main thing that gets in my craw is when I've heard someone say "I don't want the binned version", or "the unbinned version has all the working parts". Sure. I respect wanting the best chip. But like in the olden days when you could buy the same chip at 1.8mhz, 1.6mhz, and 1.4mhz? They're all binned. The chip could've been designed to run at 2.4mhz but yields were terrible. So even that top tier chip could be operating below its full potential as an individual chip. Don't say "unbinned chip".