Intel's Cougar Point Sandy Bridge Chips Are Flawed. Recalled.

Intel's 6 Series Cougar Point Sandy Bridge Chipsets have been identified with a flaw that's likely to cost the company about $700 million for recall. The company is offering 'silicon fix' for all the affected chipsets. If you're the one with those faulty chips, you need not worry. It takes time for the faulty chips to actually show degraded performance. The term 'Silicon Fix' isn't a good word in the chipset business as it indicates that something's gone terribly wrong with the chip design. Intel has already freezed the shipment of new chips in the series and the new chips will begin shipping with the fix. In their press release, Intel mentions that second generation Core i5 and i7 processors have been affected.

Intel acknowledged that the chips have been identified to have a problem with the SATA controller which leads to degradation of the ports over a period of time and results into poor i/o performance of the related devices such as HDD and optical drives. For the first quarter of 2011, Intel expects this issue to reduce revenue by approximately $300 million as the company discontinues production of the current version of the chipset and begins manufacturing the new version.

Full-year revenue is not expected to be materially affected by the issue. Total cost to repair and replace affected materials and systems in the market is estimated to be $700 million.