Sneak was concerned to learn that Intel's latest Dothan processor, which updates the firm's Centrino brand for laptops, contains "strained silicon". Sneak worries that perhaps Intel is trying to push clock speeds too high, risking a nervous breakdown on the part of the stressed-out substrate. But then strain is a particularly versatile word, so perhaps the silicon has been purified with the aid of a sieve, or over-stretched like a strained muscle?

Sneak may still have grasped the wrong end of this peculiar stick, however. After all, one excitable colleague of Sneak's leapt to entirely the wrong conclusion, on hearing mutterings about strained silicon. So to be clear; this item has nothing to do with the bulging assets of topless glamour models. Unless Intel's secret fabrication processes are even stranger than they seem...

26 May 2004