New Scientist article

[lugworm]

Interesting way to get rid of your broken bits

 

[Basic75]

We already know about chip binning, it's a common practice across the entire industry and has been for decades.

There's also nothing wrong with it.

You buy a 20MHz processor, no problem that other chips from the same production run are sold as 25MHz units.

 

[JPack]

This is the type of article you'd expect for the audience of Readers Digest.

Why would you post it here?

 

[tomtad]

I prefer my chips binned, as does Mother Nature

 

[Bazza1]

Apple has a problem with the Neo - it sold better than expected and they've run out of the free binned (read failed) A18 chips they had no other product for. So now they're having to go to chip manufacturers to produce more - it's either that or release early the Neo 2 using the binned A19 chips they've collected.

Regardless, expect the base Neo to either go up in price or disappear.

 

[1rottenapple]

I had no idea that is how chip binning works. It thought turning off course was done on purpose but after this post and reading more about it I am amazed. Its a great idea. So does that mean when 17 pro has more cores than the 17, the 17 is using binned chips? 🤔

 

[JPack]

I had no idea that is how chip binning works. It thought turning off course was done on purpose but after this post and reading more about it I am amazed. Its a great idea. So does that mean when 17 pro has more cores than the 17, the 17 is using binned chips? 🤔

No, because A19 and A19 Pro are different chips in terms of size and features.

There's actually zero evidence the A18 Pro in MacBook Neo is binned. In fact, teardowns show the A18 Pro chip in MacBook Neo have November 2025 date codes, which is contrary to the theory they are binned. If they were actually binned, the date codes would be early or mid-2024, roughly when iPhone 16 Pro began production.

Sometimes, you can't trust "reports" on the Internet and have to use your own knowledge.

 

[DaveEcc]

I had no idea that is how chip binning works. It thought turning off course was done on purpose but after this post and reading more about it I am amazed. Its a great idea. So does that mean when 17 pro has more cores than the 17, the 17 is using binned chips? 🤔

Well, the other part of it is when you don't have enough defective chips to satisfy the demand for the lower-end device, they will sometimes use a fully working chip and either intentionally fuse off part of it, or even sometimes just lock it off via software.

 

[hans1972]

The concept of binning started in the late 1950ties. It's an integral part of the semiconductor industry.