GS1140 Unit 1 Research Paper 1: Paradigm Shift

The “Pentium flaw” or the Pentium FDIV bug was when Intel released defective Pentium processors. The defect was malfunctioning P5 Pentium floating point unit causing the computer to calculate division incorrectly. The “bug” was discovered by Professor Thomas Nicely when working on mathematical equations and noticed many inconsistencies in his calculations when he added a Pentium based computer on June, 13, 1994. Intel tried to keep the bug out of the lime light while they worked on updates to try and fix the problem but, persistent consumers kept pushing the issue on the internet and in magazines. In my opinion Intel handled the defect poorly and should have admitted up to the problem and replaced the defected processors when they had reports of issues from the Pentium processor. Even if the number of defected processors was low some sort of plan should have been in place when users were starting to complain. Only after a report from CNN on November, 21, 1994 did Intel offer to replace the Pentium processor if the consumer could prove there processor had the “bug”. But the damage from the media was already done and the public felt betrayed for Intel’s slow response. Intel final did offer full replacements for the defected processor on December, 20, 1994. The financial loss was heavy and Intel reported 475 million dollars in loss by the end of 1994. Today I’m sure Intel has learned from its mistakes and would handle the situation differently today. Intel would probably replace any defective processor and would react quicker to a widespread problem when they see it occur. And if Intel competition sees a similar problem they will be able to look back at Intel’s mistakes and be able to implement a different solution.