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The Intel 4004 was followed in 1972 by the Intel 8008, the world's first 8-bit microprocessor. The 8008 was not, however, an extension of the 4004 design, but instead the culmination of a separate design project at Intel, arising from a contract with Computer Terminals Corporation, of San Antonio TX, for a chip for a terminal they were designing,[26] the Datapoint 2200 — fundamental aspects of the design came not from Intel but from CTC. In 1968, CTC's Austin O. “Gus” Roche developed the original design for the instruction set and operation of the processor. In 1969, CTC contracted two companies, Intel and Texas Instruments, to make a single-chip implementation, known as the CTC 1201.[27] In late 1970 or early 1971, TI dropped out being unable to make a reliable part. In 1970, with Intel yet to deliver the part, CTC opted to use their own implementation in the Datapoint 3300, using traditional TTL logic instead (thus the first machine to run “8008 code” was not in fact a microprocessor at all). Intel's version of the 1201 microprocessor arrived in late 1971, but was too late, slow, and required a number of additional support chips. CTC had no interest in using it. CTC had originally contracted Intel for the chip, and would have owed them $50,000 for their design work.[27] To avoid paying for a chip they did not want (and could not use), CTC released Intel from their contract and allowed them free use of the design.[27] Intel marketed it as the 8008 in April, 1972, as the world's first 8-bit microprocessor. It was the basis for the famous "Mark-8" computer kit advertised in the magazine Radio-Electronics in 1974.

The 8008 was the precursor to the very successful Intel 8080 (1974), which offered much improved performance over the 8008 and required fewer support chips, Zilog Z80 (1976), and derivative Intel 8-bit processors. The competing Motorola 6800 was released August 1974 and the similar MOS Technology 6502 in 1975 (both designed largely by the same people). The 6502 family rivaled the Z80 in popularity during the 1980s.

A low overall cost, small packaging, simple computer bus requirements, and sometimes the integration of extra circuitry (e.g. the Z80's built-in memory refresh circuitry) allowed the home computer "revolution" to accelerate sharply in the early 1980s. This delivered such inexpensive machines as the Sinclair ZX-81, which sold for US$99. A variation of the 6502, the MOS Technology 6510 was used in the Commodore 64 and yet another variant, the 8502, powered the Commodore 128.

The Western Design Center, Inc (WDC) introduced the CMOS 65C02 in 1982 and licensed the design to several firms. It was used as the CPU in the Apple IIe and IIc personal computers as well as in medical implantable grade pacemakers and defibrillators, automotive, industrial and consumer devices. WDC pioneered the licensing of microprocessor designs, later followed by ARM and other microprocessor Intellectual Property (IP) providers in the 1990s.

Motorola introduced the MC6809 in 1978, an ambitious and thought-through 8-bit design source compatible with the 6800 and implemented using purely hard-wired logic. (Subsequent 16-bit microprocessors typically used microcode to some extent, as CISC design requirements were getting too complex for purely hard-wired logic only.)

Another early 8-bit microprocessor was the Signetics 2650, which enjoyed a brief surge of interest due to its innovative and powerful instruction set architecture.

A seminal microprocessor in the world of spaceflight was RCA's RCA 1802 (aka CDP1802, RCA COSMAC) (introduced in 1976), which was used onboard the Galileo probe to Jupiter (launched 1989, arrived 1995). RCA COSMAC was the first to implement CMOS technology. The CDP1802 was used because it could be run at very low power, and because a variant was available fabricated using a special production process (Silicon on Sapphire), providing much better protection against cosmic radiation and electrostatic discharges than that of any other processor of the era. Thus, the SOS version of the 1802 was said to be the first radiation-hardened microprocessor.

The RCA 1802 had what is called a static design, meaning that the clock frequency could be made arbitrarily low, even to 0 Hz, a total stop condition. This let the Galileo spacecraft use minimum electric power for long uneventful stretches of a voyage. Timers and/or sensors would awaken/improve the performance of the processor in time for important tasks, such as navigation updates, attitude control, data acquisition, and radio communication. Current versions of the Western Design Center 65C02 and 65C816 have static cores and thus will retain data even when the clock is completely halted. [edit] 12-bit designs

The Intersil 6100 family consisted of a 12-bit microprocessor (the 6100) and a range of peripheral support and memory ICs. The microprocessor recognised the DEC PDP-8 minicomputer instruction set. As such it was sometimes referred to as the CMOS-PDP8. Since it was also produced by Harris Corporation, it was also known as the Harris HM-6100. By virtue of its CMOS technology and associated benefits, the 6100 was being incorporated into some military designs until the early 1980s. [edit] 16-bit designs

The first multi-chip 16-bit microprocessor was the National Semiconductor IMP-16, introduced in early 1973. An 8-bit version of the chipset was introduced in 1974 as the IMP-8.

Other early multi-chip 16-bit microprocessors include one used by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the LSI-11 OEM board set and the packaged PDP 11/03 minicomputer, and the Fairchild Semiconductor MicroFlame 9440, both of which were introduced in the 1975 to 1976 timeframe.

In 1975, National introduced the first 16-bit single-chip microprocessor, the National Semiconductor PACE, which was later followed by an NMOS version, the INS8900.

Another early single-chip 16-bit microprocessor was TI's TMS 9900, which was also compatible with their TI-990 line of minicomputers. The 9900 was used in the TI 990/4 minicomputer, the TI-99/4A home computer, and the TM990 line of OEM microcomputer boards. The chip was packaged in a large ceramic 64-pin DIP package, while most 8-bit microprocessors such as the Intel 8080 used the more common, smaller, and less expensive plastic 40-pin DIP. A follow-on chip, the TMS 9980, was designed to compete with the Intel 8080, had the full TI 990 16-bit instruction set, used a plastic 40-pin package, moved data 8 bits at a time, but could only address 16 KB. A third chip, the TMS 9995, was a new design. The family later expanded to include the 99105 and 99110.

The Western Design Center (WDC) introduced the CMOS 65816 16-bit upgrade of the WDC CMOS 65C02 in 1984. The 65816 16-bit microprocessor was the core of the Apple IIgs and later the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, making it one of the most popular 16-bit designs of all time.

Intel "upsized" their 8080 design into the 16-bit Intel 8086, the first member of the x86 family, which powers most modern PC type computers. Intel introduced the 8086 as a cost effective way of porting software from the 8080 lines, and succeeded in winning much business on that premise. The 8088, a version of the 8086 that used an 8-bit external data bus, was the microprocessor in the first IBM PC. Intel then released the 80186 and 80188, the 80286 and, in 1985, the 32-bit 80386, cementing their PC market dominance with the processor family's backwards compatibility. The 80186 and 80188 were essentially versions of the 8086 and 8088, enhanced with some onboard peripherals and a few new instructions; they were not used in IBM-compatible PCs because the built-in perpherals and their locations in the memory map were incompatible with the IBM design. The 8086 and successors had an innovative but limited method of memory segmentation, while the 80286 introduced a full-featured segmented memory management unit (MMU). The 80386 introduced a flat 32-bit memory model with paged memory management.

The Intel x86 processors up to and including the 80386 do not include floating-point units (FPUs). Intel introduced the 8087, 80287, and 80387 math coprocessors to add hardware floating-point and transcendental function capabilities to the 8086 through 80386 CPUs. The 8087 works with the 8086/8088 and 80186/80188,[28] the 80187 works with the 80186/80188, the 80287 works with the 80286 and 80386,[29] and the 80387 works with the 80386 (yielding better performance than the 80287). The combination of an x86 CPU and an x87 coprocessor forms a single multi-chip microprocessor; the two chips are programmed as a unit using a single integrated instruction set.[30] Though the 8087 coprocessor is interfaced to the CPU through I/O ports in the CPU's address space, this is transparent to the program, which does not need to know about or access these I/O ports directly; the program accesses the coprocessor and its registers through normal instruction opcodes. Starting with the successor to the 80386, the 80486, the FPU was integrated with the control unit, MMU, and integer ALU in a pipelined design on a single chip (in the 80486DX version), or the FPU was eliminated entirely (in the 80486SX version). An ostensible coprocessor for the 80486SX, the 80487, was actually a complete 80486DX which disabled and replaced the coprocessorless 80486SX that it was installed to upgrade. [edit] 32-bit designs Upper interconnect layers on an Intel 80486DX2 die

16-bit designs had only been on the market briefly when 32-bit implementations started to appear.

The most significant of the 32-bit designs is the MC68000, introduced in 1979. The 68K, as it was widely known, had 32-bit registers in its programming model but used 16-bit internal data paths, 3 16-bit Arithmetic Logic Units, and a 16-bit external data bus (to reduce pin count), and externally supported only 24-bit addresses (internally it worked with full 32 bit addresses). In PC-based IBM-compatible mainframes the MC68000 internal microcode was modified to emulate the 32-bit System/370 IBM mainframe.[31] Motorola generally described it as a 16-bit processor, though it clearly has 32-bit capable architecture. The combination of high performance, large (16 megabytes or 224 bytes) memory space and fairly low cost made it the most popular CPU design of its class. The Apple Lisa and Macintosh designs made use of the 68000, as did a host of other designs in the mid-1980s, including the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga.

The world's first single-chip fully 32-bit microprocessor, with 32-bit data paths, 32-bit buses, and 32-bit addresses, was the AT&T Bell Labs BELLMAC-32A, with first samples in 1980, and general production in 1982[32][33] After the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, it was renamed the WE 32000 (WE for Western Electric), and had two follow-on generations, the WE 32100 and WE 32200. These microprocessors were used in the AT&T 3B5 and 3B15 minicomputers; in the 3B2, the world's first desktop supermicrocomputer; in the "Companion", the world's first 32-bit laptop computer; and in "Alexander", the world's first book-sized supermicrocomputer, featuring ROM-pack memory cartridges similar to today's gaming consoles. All these systems ran the UNIX System V operating system.

Intel's first 32-bit microprocessor was the iAPX 432, which was introduced in 1981 but was not a commercial success. It had an advanced capability-based object-oriented architecture, but poor performance compared to contemporary architectures such as Intel's own 80286 (introduced 1982), which was almost four times as fast on typical benchmark tests. However, the results for the iAPX432 was partly due to a rushed and therefore suboptimal Ada compiler.[citation needed]

The ARM first appeared in 1985. This is a RISC processor design, which has since come to dominate the 32-bit embedded systems processor space due in large part to its power efficiency, its licensing model, and its wide selection of system development tools. Semiconductor manufacturers generally license cores such as the ARM11 and integrate them into their own system on a chip products; only a few such vendors are licensed to modify the ARM cores. Most cell phones include an ARM processor, as do a wide variety of other products. There are microcontroller-oriented ARM cores without virtual memory support, as well as SMP applications processors with virtual memory.

Motorola's success with the 68000 led to the MC68010, which added virtual memory support. The MC68020, introduced in 1985 added full 32-bit data and address buses. The 68020 became hugely popular in the Unix supermicrocomputer market, and many small companies (e.g., Altos, Charles River Data Systems) produced desktop-size systems. The MC68030 was introduced next, improving upon the previous design by integrating the MMU into the chip. The continued success led to the MC68040, which included an FPU for better math performance. A 68050 failed to achieve its performance goals and was not released, and the follow-up MC68060 was released into a market saturated by much faster RISC designs. The 68K family faded from the desktop in the early 1990s.

Other large companies designed the 68020 and follow-ons into embedded equipment. At one point, there were more 68020s in embedded equipment than there were Intel Pentiums in PCs.[34] The ColdFire processor cores are derivatives of the venerable 68020.

During this time (early to mid-1980s), National Semiconductor introduced a very similar 16-bit pinout, 32-bit internal microprocessor called the NS 16032 (later renamed 32016), the full 32-bit version named the NS 32032. Later the NS 32132 was introduced which allowed two CPUs to reside on the same memory bus, with built in arbitration. The NS32016/32 outperformed the MC68000/10 but the NS32332 which arrived at approximately the same time the MC68020 did not have enough performance. The third generation chip, the NS32532 was different. It had about double the performance of the MC68030 which was released around the same time. The appearance of RISC processors like the AM29000 and MC88000 (now both dead) influenced the architecture of the final core, the NS32764. Technically advanced, using a superscalar RISC core, internally overclocked, with a 64 bit bus, it was still capable of executing Series 32000 instructions through real time translation.

When National Semiconductor decided to leave the Unix market, the chip was redesigned into the Swordfish Embedded processor with a set of on chip peripherals. The chip turned out to be too expensive for the laser printer market and was killed. The design team went to Intel and there designed the Pentium processor, which is very similar to the NS32764 core internally. The big success of the Series 32000 was in the laser printer market, where the NS32CG16 with microcoded BitBlt instructions had very good price/performance and was adopted by large companies like Canon. By the mid-1980s, Sequent introduced the first symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) server-class computer using the NS 32032. This was one of the design's few wins, and it disappeared in the late 1980s. The MIPS R2000 (1984) and R3000 (1989) were highly successful 32-bit RISC microprocessors. They were used in high-end workstations and servers by SGI, among others. Other designs included the interesting Zilog Z80000, which arrived too late to market to stand a chance and disappeared quickly.

In the late 1980s, "microprocessor wars" started killing off some of the microprocessors[citation needed]. Apparently[vague], with only one major design win, Sequent, the NS 32032 just faded out of existence, and Sequent switched to Intel microprocessors[citation needed].

From 1985 to 2003, the 32-bit x86 architectures became increasingly dominant in desktop, laptop, and server markets, and these microprocessors became faster and more capable. Intel had licensed early versions of the architecture to other companies, but declined to license the Pentium, so AMD and Cyrix built later versions of the architecture based on their own designs. During this span, these processors increased in complexity (transistor count) and capability (instructions/second) by at least three orders of magnitude. Intel's Pentium line is probably the most famous and recognizable 32-bit processor model, at least with the public at large. [edit] 64-bit designs in personal computers

While 64-bit microprocessor designs have been in use in several markets since the early 1990s, the early 2000s saw the introduction of 64-bit microprocessors targeted at the PC market.

With AMD's introduction of a 64-bit architecture backwards-compatible with x86, x86-64 (also called AMD64), in September 2003, followed by Intel's near fully compatible 64-bit extensions (first called IA-32e or EM64T, later renamed Intel 64), the 64-bit desktop era began. Both versions can run 32-bit legacy applications without any performance penalty as well as new 64-bit software. With operating systems Windows XP x64, Windows Vista x64, Windows 7 x64, Linux, BSD and Mac OS X that run 64-bit native, the software is also geared to fully utilize the capabilities of such processors. The move to 64 bits is more than just an increase in register size from the IA-32 as it also doubles the number of general-purpose registers.

The move to 64 bits by PowerPC processors had been intended since the processors' design in the early 90s and was not a major cause of incompatibility. Existing integer registers are extended as are all related data pathways, but, as was the case with IA-32, both floating point and vector units had been operating at or above 64 bits for several years. Unlike what happened when IA-32 was extended to x86-64, no new general purpose registers were added in 64-bit PowerPC, so any performance gained when using the 64-bit mode for applications making no use of the larger address space is minimal. [edit] Multicore designs Main article: Multi-core (computing) This section and the sections below needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2012)

A different approach to improving a computer's performance is to add extra processors, as in symmetric multiprocessing designs, which have been popular in servers and workstations since the early 1990s. Keeping up with Moore's Law is becoming increasingly challenging as chip-making technologies approach their physical limits.

In response, microprocessor manufacturers look for other ways to improve performance in order to hold on to the momentum of constant upgrades in the market.

A multi-core processor is simply a single chip containing more than one microprocessor core. This effectively multiplies the processor's potential performance by the number of cores (as long as the operating system and software is designed to take advantage of more than one processor core). Some components, such as bus interface and cache, may be shared between cores. Because the cores are physically very close to each other, they can communicate with each other much faster than separate processors in a multiprocessor system, which improves overall system performance.

In 2005, the first personal computer dual-core processors were announced. As of 2012, dual-core and quad-core processors are widely used in home PCs and laptops while quad, six, eight, ten, twelve, and sixteen-core processors are common in the professional and enterprise markets with workstations and servers.

Sun Microsystems has released the Niagara and Niagara 2 chips, both of which feature an eight-core design. The Niagara 2 supports more threads and operates at 1.6GHz.

High-end Intel Xeon processors that are on the LGA 771, LGA1336, and LGA 2011 sockets and high-end AMD Opteron processors that are on the C32 and G34 sockets are DP (dual processor) capable, as well as the older Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775 also used in an older Mac Pro by Apple and the Intel Skulltrail motherboard. AMD's G34 motherboards can support up to four CPUs and Intel's LGA 1567 motherboards can support up to eight CPUs.

The modern desktop sockets do not support systems with multiple CPUs but very few applications outside of the professional market can make good use of more than four cores and both Intel and AMD currently offer fast quad and six core desktop CPUs so this is generally a moot point anyway. AMD also offers the first and still currently the only eight core desktop CPUs with the FX-8xxx line but anything with more than four cores is generally not very useful in home desktops. As of January 24th of 2012, these FX processors are generally inferior to similarly priced and some times cheaper Intel quad core Sandy Bridge models.

The desktop market has been in a transition towards quad core CPUs since Intel's Core 2 Quads were released and now are quite common although dual core CPUs are still more prevalent. This is largely because of people using older or mobile computers, both of which have a much lower chance of having more than two cores than newer desktops and because of how most computer users are not heavy users. AMD offers CPUs with more cores for a given amount of money than similarly priced Intel CPUs but the AMD cores are somewhat slower than Intel cores so the two will trade blows in different applications depending on how well threaded the programs being used are.

For example, Intel's cheapest Sandy Bridge quad core CPUs often cost almost twice as much as AMD's cheapest Athlon II, Phenom II, and FX quad core CPUs but Intel has dual core CPUs in the same price ranges as AMD's cheaper quad core CPUs. In an application that uses one or two threads the Intel dual cores will out-perform AMD's similarly priced quad core CPUs and if a program supports three or four threads the cheap AMD quad core CPUs will out-perform the similarly priced Intel dual-core CPUs.

Historically AMD and Intel have switched places as the company with the fastest CPU several times. Intel is currently winning on the desktop side of the computer CPU market with their Sandy Bridge and upcoming Ivy Bridge series. In servers AMD's new Opterons seem to have superior performance for their price points. This means that AMD is currently more competitive in low to mid end servers and workstations where more cores and threads are more effectively utilized since professional software often uses more, if not all available threads. [edit] RISC Main article: Reduced instruction set computing

In the mid-1980s to early-1990s, a crop of new high-performance Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) microprocessors appeared, influenced by discrete RISC-like CPU designs such as the IBM 801 and others. RISC microprocessors were initially used in special-purpose machines and Unix workstations, but then gained wide acceptance in other roles.

In 1986, HP released its first system with a PA-RISC CPU. The first commercial RISC microprocessor design was released either by MIPS Computer Systems, the 32-bit R2000 (the R1000 was not released) or by Acorn computers, the 32-bit ARM2 in 1987.[citation needed] The R3000 made the design truly practical, and the R4000 introduced the world's first commercially available 64-bit RISC microprocessor. Competing projects would result in the IBM POWER and Sun SPARC architectures. Soon every major vendor was releasing a RISC design, including the AT&T CRISP, AMD 29000, Intel i860 and Intel i960, Motorola 88000, DEC Alpha.

As of 2007, two 64-bit RISC architectures are still produced in volume for non-embedded applications: SPARC and Power ISA. [edit] Special-purpose designs

A microprocessor is a general purpose system. Several specialized processing devices have followed from the technology. Microcontrollers integrate a microprocessor with periphal devices for control of embedded system. A digital signal processor (DSP) is specialized for signal processing. Graphics processing units may have no, limited, or general programming facilities. For example, GPUs through the 1990s were mostly non-programmable and have only recently gained limited facilities like programmable vertex shaders. [edit] Market statistics

In 2003, about $44 billion (USD) worth of microprocessors were manufactured and sold.[35] Although about half of that money was spent on CPUs used in desktop or laptop personal computers, those count for only about 2% of all CPUs sold.[36]

About 55% of all CPUs sold in the world are 8-bit microcontrollers, over two billion of which were sold in 1997.[37]

As of 2002, less than 10% of all the CPUs sold in the world are 32-bit or more. Of all the 32-bit CPUs sold, about 2% are used in desktop or laptop personal computers. Most microprocessors are used in embedded control applications such as household appliances, automobiles, and computer peripherals. Taken as a whole, the average price for a microprocessor, microcontroller, or DSP is just over $6.[36]

About ten billion CPUs were manufactured in 2008. About 98% of new CPUs produced each year are embedded.[38] [edit] See also

* Arithmetic logic unit * Central processing unit * Comparison of CPU architectures * Computer architecture * Computer engineering * CPU design * Floating point unit * Instruction set * List of instruction sets * List of microprocessors * Microarchitecture * Microcode * Microprocessor chronology

[edit] Notes