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The Year 2004 in Microprocessors

Posted by michael on from the happy-new-year dept.

DeanMan writes "From spintronics to clockless CPUs, 2004 was a year of process and research in the microprocessor industry. As a way to transition into the new year, this article offers a month-by-month look at the highlights of the 2004 microprocessor timeline."

7 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. So.... by FuturePastNow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    IBM is a news source now, eh?

    --
    Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
    1. Re:So.... by FuturePastNow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      True. Google shows a lot of other articles by him, in other places. But, while I like IBM, linking to stories like this sets a precedent I don't like. Most companies will flat-out lie to make themselves look better.

      And- Kane? Did anyone else look at his name and picture and think of Command & Conquer?

      --
      Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
  2. Re:Summary by paithuk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Intel doesn't suck. AMD wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Intel, and probably nor would be the machine you're sitting at right now. Intel have some amazing guys working for them, and have hosted brilliant minds in the past. Linux may be open source and beautiful in some respects, but it hasn't done for operating systems what Intel have done for processors. Come on, be serious pal.

  3. Unlike IBM's previous microprocessor history... by AtariDatacenter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Remember IBM's microprocessor history that was posted to Slashdot a week or so back? I have to say, this one is far more even handed to the competition. Quite a lot of mentions of SPARC for the first time.

    But this one line cracks me up...

    American Technology Research predicts that Sun® and IBM® are well positioned to capture the 64-bit desktop market since both use the Opteron processor as an integral part of upcoming product lines and both have initiated flexible CPU roadmaps.

    Sun? IBM? Capture the desktop market? My, these folks at American Technology Research much be geniuses! Or is that genusi?

    FWIW, Sun has been doing 64 bit computing for quite some time now with the 64 bit SPARC chips it has been putting out for ages. But Sun Microsystems and IBM, masters of the 64 bit desktop? Oh boy.

  4. Why aren't OPTICAL-Electronic chips being made ?? by zymano · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A hybrid might ease us into all optical chips.

    Why is everyone dropping this field ? Quantum is way off in the distance and so is spintronic.

    Using optical buses would reduce wiring complexity too.

  5. Re:Be less optimistic about clockless design by slashdot_nobody_nowh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Look, I tried to be short in my post.

    When I'm saying signals change more or less
    whenever they want, I mean there is no
    generating clock to relate their changes to
    and thus to avoid interference created
    by signal changes.

    With modern frequencies connectors in chips
    behave to big extent like transmission lines.

    I worked as VLSI designer and STA (Static
    Timing Analysis) methodology engineer,
    so I hope I know what I'm talking about.

  6. Re:The future of silicon chips by CajunArson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, actually it should be reduce... each stage is smaller---> more overall stages. Witness Prescott.. it has ~10 more pipeline stages than Northwood did, each one is doing less (and hence can be clocked faster)
    Intel is now moving away from this since the performance gains just aren't there and the power consumption is getting terrible (like they said in the clock-less posts... you must distribute clock to all those stages amongst other power-sucking things)

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    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.