AMD Duron

Unlike the Thunderbird that is currently being manufactured in both Dresden and in Austin, the Duron is only manufactured in the Austin plant.  The reason being that the Dresden plant is only producing “high performance” parts right now using a copper process, and the Duron is obviously not classified as that, so it is produced at the Austin plant using the conventional aluminum process. 

There has been quite a bit of confusion as to how to tell the aluminum parts (both Durons and Thunderbirds) from the copper parts (Thunderbirds only).  The only way we currently know of is by taking a look at the color of the tint on the die, unless you have a Duron (as we mentioned above, all Durons are aluminum). 

Copper processors, meaning those made in the Fab30 plant in Dresden, feature a blueish tint to them.  Aluminum processors, including Durons, that are made in Fab25 in Austin, feature a greenish tint to them.  This may be the opposite of what you may have heard but we confirmed with AMD on the issue. 

The tint of the die has nothing to do with the physical properties of aluminum or copper, instead the reason for the difference in color is that AMD uses a different polisher at the Dresden plant than they do at the Austin plant.  This results in the differing tint between copper and aluminum parts.  There is no word as to whether or not AMD will be switching polishers in the future so that all of their parts have the same tint to them.

There is another problem that exists if you want to tell a copper part from an aluminum part, the two dies are very difficult to tell apart. In the picture below, we have three chips from AMD, two are aluminum and thus have the green tint to them, and the remaining one is copper and has a blue tint to its die.  Can you pick out the blue one? 

While you might be able to pick the blue one out since you have two green ones sitting next to it, it’s actually pretty hard to do so unless you have another chip to compare it to (for those of you that missed it, the first one is the 1GHz copper Thunderbird and has a blue tint). Basically the differences between the green and blue tints are very subtle.

The easiest way to tell (and it’s not that easy) is not to look at the chip from directly above (because they all look green then), but to look at it from an angle.  When viewed at an angle, a copper chip will appear to be blue or slightly purple while an aluminum chip will most definitely been green. 

But if you’re holding a Duron, regardless of how you look at it, that’s a green tint you’re seeing in front of you.

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