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Intel Shipped 1 Billionth Computer Chip
murat submitted linkage to a simple little story that proclaims that Intel has recently shipped
it's One Billionth Chip. Quite an impressive accomplishment... it took them 25 years to reach the billions, but they estimate that they will hit 2 billion by only 2007.
The intel family of PC processors actually started with the 8080. It was released in April 1974 running at 2MHz, and is generally considered to be the first truly usable microprocessor design. It was used in many early computers, and formed the basis for machines running CP/M. The first single-board microcomputer was built on the basis of the 8080. The 8088 was actually released before the 8086, but as the article states the 8086 was developed first.
Something clever...
The article said it: ...
From the 8086 to today's Intel Pentium 4 processor, Intel Xeon and Intel Centrino mobile technology
They're lumping together all the CPU chips they've ever shipped, from the 8086 to the latest. I imagine they must have shipped a lot more of other types of chips, though.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Probably not. Ripped from intel.com:
Based on combined desktop, laptop and server shipment data from industry analyst firm Mercury Research*, Intel has shipped over one billion x86 CPUs as of April 2003, roughly 25 years after the debut of the first 8086 microprocessor on June 8, 1978.
It was from the x86 family. Have a nice day, thanks for playing.
Great Linux Site
"Don't forget the prunes." L. Francis Herreshoff
Heck, the term "computer chip" is so generic that a BCD converter or a DAC fits the definition (sneaks under the wire, barely). A microcontroller most certainly qualifies. Microcontrollers are usually simple CPUs with registers, instruction sets, etc. just like a big CPU. Moot point, though, because they're talking about Intel shipping its billionth x86 family chip.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Except the article is wrong. the 8086 was not the first CPU Intel built... that was the 4004, the 8086 wasn't even the first CPU built for use in Personal computers that was either the 8008 or the 8080.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Intel has a very interesting reading on their website about the history of the 8086 processor and how it was developed.
c le s/art_1.htm
http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/q12001/arti
Whoops, it appears that it has been announced on their website, too. Ok, I am no longer skeptical.
Press Release
I disagree on the basis "fast" is subjective. For example, Athlon XP processors kick the P4 at doing bignum math [something I'm active in]. My 1.53Ghz Athlon would routinely beat out a P4 2Ghz by 25% or more.
:-)
There are really only three good reasons to buy a P4
1. Cost. It comes with a Dell
2. Heat. P4s are wickedly better at managing heat.
3. Multimedia. SSE2 when used properly can woop an Athlon.
Outside of those three reasons there isn't any other real reason to use a P4. The ALU and FPU of the Athlon are wickedly optimized making it an all around faster processor.
15 cycle MUL on the P4, nuff said. [hint: the same multiply takes 6 cycles on the Athlon]
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Just to clarify since a few of you were wondering and we're the source of the information: - It's 1 billion x86 CPUs (8086 thru P4, all flavors). No 8080x, i960s, Xscale, etc is counted. - Intel's figure is 1 billion. AMD is about 200 million units of x86 for the same time frame. Also, Intel never comes out and says what their own data shows, primarily due to reasons related to stock,the SEC and the competion. There were some hints that Intel probably reached 1 billion before external researchers thought they did, but nothing official.
I think I can safely say that ARM has shipped approximately 0 processors. They have, however, licenced their technology to a whole range of semiconductor manufacturers, including Intel, who do all the mucking about with silicon and god-knows-what.
Ok, I'm being a little pedantic.. I'd be interested to know how many ARM processors had been produced by all these manufacturers - must be quite a few!
Er... differentiating would give rate of production, which on its own isn't enough to tell you how many are in production at the moment.
If you're working with years as the time unit, assuming rate = current number in production is equivalent to assuming it takes a year to make one chip...
Unless you got the 173 million figure from somewhere else?