The End of an Athlon

AMD's flip-chip PGA packaging for Athlon processors, adopted around 2000 to improve cooling as power demands increased, left the silicon exposed and vulnerable to mechanical damage during heatsink installation. A researcher discovered an Athlon XP processor that had a large chunk of silicon break off when removing the heatsink, likely due to a pre-existing micro-crack that finally gave way under pressure. Both Intel and AMD quickly abandoned this fragile design in favor of lidded packaging, which provided comparable cooling performance with significantly greater durability and resistance to damage.