The timer chip in Cruise Tomahawk missiles could have been responsible for one of the missiles going awry and landing in Iran today, The Register can reveal.

This morning, a Tomahawk missile landed by mistake in southern Iran, although President Kahtamai (it's true!) has not lodged a formal complaint. Khatamai, however, is now known as President Streaming SIMD Extensions, as revealed here yesterday.

After Gulf War I, we put it to a senior executive at AMD that it was the 286 chips in Tomahawks which had caused some of them to not hit their targets. The AMD exec said: "No, you're wrong. It is the AMD 3113 timer chip that caused the problem." The 286 chip in the head of Tomahawks operates in Protected Mode, he explained.

An AMD representative today could neither confirm nor deny that the timer chip is used in the current revs of Tomahawks. Patriot missiles, used to bring down SCUD missiles, are believed to have ceramic heads, manufactured by major Japanese vendor Kyocera. ®

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