What is this called?

G

Gordon.C

Member
Hi,

what are the dark pieces in the middle of the CPU actually called?
Unfortunately the answer I am looking for is not L1, L2, L3 cache because my IT teacher does not take that as correct answer.

Is there some other term for those dark things?

processor_pins.jpg
 
They are neither microprocessors, nor cores. A microprocessor is the full chip, the bit which you can't see. A core is a single processor, so you may have 4 processors on one die (the bit of silicon that the circuitry is on). What you see when you have a CPU is the base with contacts, the metalic part is a heatspreader, you take that off and there is the chip itself underneath. Take one off an old CPU to see what I mean, or a lot of laptop ones don't have one, so take one apart and find out.

For the actual names of them, I am not sure, however you may want to note that not every CPU has them on the outside, take for instance:

amd_phenom_II_x4_955_pins.jpg


It tends to only be Intel chips which have them there, which is a bit of a bitch because I recently managed to knock one of them off, or rather take it out of the box it was in for a few months to find it was off
 
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I believe he is looking for the technical term of the part, such as a resistor, instead of what it's used for.
 
5 of them look like resistors. The others could possibly be a number of things. My guess are capacitors in some shape form or fashion.

AMD has them. But they are all top side under the heat shield.
 
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I believe the correct term for them is smoothing capacitors or reservoir capacitors(interchangeable terms). None apppear to be resistors, as SMT resistors tend to be black in color.
 
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The resolution isn't sufficient for me, but it appears that there are a few SMT capacitors (the ones with silver contacts on the ends) and several SMT integrates circuits (the ones with multiple silver contacts on the sides).

SMT meaning Surface Mount Technology.

There's not a lot of room on those things so no way to identify them by a label or any type of code; if this is a processor, then they could be voltage regulation or maybe amplifiers or buffers or any number of things.
 
I think the IT teacher just want a general answer like capacitor, risistor or IC. Don't have to be specify what do they do?
 
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