PPGA - FCPGA

[keystone]

Dumb, but I have to ask. What are the differences between a PPGA and FCPGA. Can you use a flip chip in a PPGA board or adapter and a PPGA chip in a FCPGA board?

[janus83]

PPGA (Plastic Pin Grid Array) is for the older celeron chips that used the .25 micron (Silver and black in color) FC-PGA (Flip Chip Pin Grid Array) is for the newer Pentium III Chips and the Newer Celeron chips. Green in color and looks like a wafer. It uses the .18 copper micron. Almost all recent boards support FC-PGA Hope that helps.

[xsrvx]

You can't use a FC-PGA in a PPGA board unless the board has been upgraded (such as the old 810 board from Intel) You can however use a PPGA in a FC-PGA board without a problem. boards are always backward compatible for the most part.

[Sorry_I_Win]

The main difference in the FCPGA cpus is the the cpu core is inverted (on the top instead of the bottom as in PPGA cpus) hence the name flip-chip. The reason for this was to get the cpu die core closer to the heatsink and thus make cooling more effecient. They also use a different manufacturing technique (they use a smaller die size, .18 micron), but they are not copper-based as Janus stated, regardless of the coppermine designation. This was only a code name (actually for the PIII core technology, which is also used in the newer celerons). Hope this clears things up a bit. I think the real incompatability issue is that the newer fcpga chips require a different cpu voltage than ppga chips, because of the smaller cpu die.

[janus83]

Thanks for the reminder I forgot about the copper part only some of them were copper because of the EB rating I think after them wasn't it?

[Sorry_I_Win]

no actually... none of the piii's or celeron chips are copper-based. Niether are any chips from AMD yet. I think the P4 does use a copper fab though, but I'm not 100% sure about that. The upcoming AMD cpu will be copper-based as well. Using copper (rather than the aluminum traces used now) allows for better conductivity and shorter traces, which in turn allows for faster operation.

The "EB" (Enhanced Bus, I believe) just designates that that chip runs at a 133Mhz bus as opposed to the previous 100Mhz bus.

[keystone]

Okay thanks everyone.