Deep pipelines vs. risk and power walls [microprocessors]

Summary form only given. Intel's /spl times/86 processors pushed pipelining and clock rates until physics stopped us. Less obviously, we were also pushing complexity, and therefore risk. We now know where the limits to these trends lie: with the Prescott processor. This talk explores the nature of risk in chip developments, how the ever-deepening pipelines in the Pentium series affected, and were affected by, perceived risk and thermals, and where the future will take us.