{"id":3812,"date":"2022-03-11T02:27:04","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T02:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isophal.com\/it\/?p=3812"},"modified":"2022-03-11T02:27:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T02:27:45","slug":"history-of-computer-processors-cpu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isophal.com\/news\/2022\/03\/11\/3812.html\/","title":{"rendered":"History of Computer Processors (CPU)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Moore\u2019s Law observes that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. Based on this law, the development of the computer processors started in the year 1971. Let\u2019s take a look at the journey so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Computer<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Cpu\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Cpu\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, computers are a part of our lifestyle, but the first computer that was used was developed at the University of Pennsylvania in the year 1946! It had an ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) processor. The reprogramming feature that is so extensively used today, was introduced by Alan Turing and John von Neumann with their teams. The von Neumann architecture is the basis of modern computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the development of the first microprocessor \u2013 Intel\u2019s 4004 to the latest ones \u2013 the microprocessors have come a long way. Here, we look into the story so far.Chips Till Date<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1971 \u2013 Intel 4004<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb It was designed by Federico Faggin and Ted Hoff of Intel and Masatoshi Shima of Busicom, and it was launched on November 15,1971.
\u00bb It consisted of 2300 transistors with pMOS technology.
\u00bb The total number of instructions were 46. The designed clock speed was 1 MHz while only 740 kHz was achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1972 \u2013 Intel 8008<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb Also known as MCS-8, it was launched in April 1972.
\u00bb It was developed by Victor Poor and Harry Pyle of CTC, and Ted Hoff, Faggin, Stanley Mazor and Hal Feeney from Intel.
\u00bb It was made up of 3500 transistors. However, it was slower than its predecessor 4004.
\u00bb The clock speed was 0.5 MHz with the total number of instructions being 48.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time it was used in personal computers, Micral and SCELBI.<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1974 \u2013 Intel 8080<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb Launched in April 1974, it was developed by Faggin, Mazor and Masatoshi Shima.
\u00bb The clock speed increased to 2 MHz, it was built on nMOS technology and used 6000 transistors.
\u00bb The major development was the separation of address (16-bit) and data (8-bit) bus. It also supported 256 I\/Os.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was used in the computers MITS Altair 8800 and IMSAI 8080. Space Invaders (arcade video game) also used 8080 as the main processor.<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1974 \u2013 Motorola 6800<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb This processor developed by Motorola had no I\/O ports.
\u00bb Memory-mapped input-output were used as I\/Os.
\u00bb The clock speed was only 2 MHz with the instruction set consisting of 72 instructions.
\u00bb It was for the first time that HCF (Halt and Catch Fire) opcode was used, that made the processor unresponsive to any interrupts till it was reset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1977 \u2013 Intel 8085<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb Unlike the other processors developed so far, this one was also used as a microcontroller working on +5V supply.
\u00bb It was the first time that von Neumann architecture was used.
\u00bb It was built with 6500 transistors and used nMOS technology.
\u00bb The instruction set consisted of 256 instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The radiation-hardened version was used in NASA and ESA space expeditions.<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1978 \u2013 Intel 8086<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb The designed clock speed was 10 MHz.
\u00bb The development team for architecture consisted of Stephen P. Morse and Bruce Ravenel. Logic was designed by Jim McKevitt, John Bayliss, and William Pohlman was the project manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was first used in the microcomputer Mycron 2000.<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1979 \u2013 Intel 8088<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb 8088 was based on the new HMOS technology and was launched on 1 July.
\u00bb It came in 40-pin DIP as well as PLCC (plastic leaded chip carrier) package.
\u00bb However, the data path was only 8-bit. The designed frequency was 10 MHz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original IBM PC was based on 8088.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1987 \u2013 SPARC<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb This processor was developed by Sun Microsystems.
\u00bb It had a clock speed of 40 MHz.
\u00bb It was made up of 1.8 million transistors with 256 IO pins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fujitsu\u2019s K Computer is ranked number 1 in the world\u2019s fastest 500 supercomputers as per TOP500 list ratings. It used SPARC.<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1991 \u2013 Am386<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb This AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) processor had striking resemblance to the Intel 80386 version x86 processors.
\u00bb With a clock speed of 40 MHz and 32-bit data bus, the processor was a competitor to Intel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The excellent performance of AMD\u2019s floating point unit made it the second best choice (after Intel) for many manufacturers.<\/em><\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1993 \u2013 Pentium Processor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb The Pentium family started with the launch of the P5 processor.
\u00bb It came in two models \u2013 510-pin version with 60 MHz clock speed and 567-pin version with a clock speed of 66 MHz.
\u00bb Launched on March 22, it was built with 3.1 million transistors.
\u00bb This 32-bit processor was the most advanced processor used in many computers that were manufactured at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the first superscalar x86 microarchitecture that could execute two instructions simultaneously, thus speeding up the processor and reducing computing time.<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1995 \u2013 Pentium Pro<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb This was the first processor of the Pentium II series.
\u00bb This latest entrant came in an unconventional MCM (ceramic multi-chip module) 387 pins packaging.
\u00bb With a clock speed of 200 MHz, it was built to run in quad as well as dual processor configurations.
\u00bb About 5.5 million transistors were used to build this processor.
\u00bb It did not have an MMX instruction set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This processor was used in ASCI Red that delivered teraFLOP (one trillion floating-point operations in one second) performance.<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1997 \u2013 Pentium II<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bb Launched on 7 May, the Pentium II family had a vast range of processors to offer.
\u00bb The clock speed was increased gradually with every model launched to up to 450 MHz.
\u00bb Unlike the traditional processors, this one came in a slot or socket module. This made it easy for the computer manufacturers to use it in a limited space.
\u00bb Various processors were launched under this family:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Klamath (233 and 266 MHz)<\/li>
  • Deschutes (333 MHz)<\/li>
  • Pentium II Overdrive (300 or 333 MHz)<\/li>
  • Tonga (First mobile Pentium II)<\/li>
  • Dixon (Considered to be the fastest Pentium II)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    It had a removable heatsink\/fan combination that reduced the problem of heat dissipation.<\/em><\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    1999 \u2013 Pentium III<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u00bb This Pentium II successor was launched on 26 February.
    \u00bb The advancement from the previous model was the addition of the SSE instruction that accelerated the floating point calculations.
    \u00bb On the similar lines as Pentium II, this processor was launched in Celeron (Low-end version) and Xeon (High-end version).
    \u00bb The list of processors under this family are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n