Inside Intel: From Silicon to the World

Intel’s System Validation Labs

In the SV lab we were touring (there are many), the lab engineers were running a barrage of tests (developed in-house) on forthcoming Plumas solutions in single and multiprocessor configurations.

These systems are validated using test scripts that generate over 1 million tests per day.  For every CPU and chipset that is validated Intel ends up performing approximately 1 billion tests in their SV labs.  From what we’ve been told, this is the most rigorous set of validation requirements that any chipset vendor imposes on their products which may explain why Intel is often much later to the game when introducing new features such as DDR or PC133 SDRAM support. 

The testbeds go here

These computers feed data to the testbeds

This hall is filled with thousands of computers that are constantly testing Intel platforms and products.

These tests are fed to the platforms via thousands upon thousands of computers running distributed computing applications to hammer the platforms.  All errors are recorded and investigated until the source of the problem is found and resolved.