Gregory's ServerOne of the engineers on the 486 was Pat Gelsinger, who is now CEO of Intel. You can see his initials on the die.
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 @awoodland The Pentium Pro was the first x86 processor with microcode that could be updated. Intel originally implemented that for testing purposes, but realized after the expensive Pentium FDIV bug that microcode updates were an important feature.  @kenshirriff I remember some beyond useless support person at Intel telling us at VMware that the Pentium did not use microcode when we were trying to find out about a bug that appeared to have a microcode fix that some but not all OEMs had released. OK well we've reversed engineered part of the update for the microcode your processors don't have, so maybe we could talk to somebody more senior?... (eventually got to senior engineering folks who were helpful) A closeup of the edge of the 486 showing bond pads with bond wires attached. Note the complex I/O driver block next to each bond pad. The pads in the center (without drivers) are two of the power and ground supplies. Note the thick vertical lines distributing power/ground to the chip. Here's a Google Drive link to a higher resolution version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nQMtDGMQN8W34I486jtm3o4z527TU65V/view?usp=drive_link  @gsuberland It was supposed to be 7155x10870 :( @kenshirriff ah yeah your server will have resized it then. weird final resolution though, I guess it limited based on compressed JPEG size?  @kenshirriff @drwho |
The 486 processor uses microcode. Here's a closeup of the microcode ROM; you can see the bits.