In honor of Intel's 40th birthday, we've compiled a list of the major dates in the history of the Intel chip. The company has helped define the technopoly we live in today, and how we work and play with our computers. From chips in a calculator, to 486 PCs, to the Pentium era in which our computers are outdated every season, Intel chips have been at the center of the personal computing world since its inception. Read ahead and wax nostalgic with us.
1971:
4004 This 400-KHz chip was used in Busicom calculators and arithmetic manipulation. It was the world's first microprocessor, as well as the first semiconductor device that provided, at the chip level, the functions of a computer.
1974:
8080 Found in traffic-light controllers, as well as within the Altair computer (the legendary first PC), the 8080 was the first widely accepted microprocessor.
1979:
8088 Blistering 5-MHz and 8-MHz models of this chip were the standard CPUs for all IBM PCs and PC clones at the time. The 8088's success launched Intel into the ranks of the Fortune 500.
1982:
80286 With the introduction of the 286, a processor family is born. The 286 was the first chip Intel released to be backward-compatible with software written for the 8088.
1985:
386 DX The 386 was Intel's first 32-bit desktop chip, comprising 275,000 transistors.
1989:
486 DX The Intel 486 was the first CPU to offer a built-in math coprocessor, speeding computing by offloading complex math functions from the central processor.
1994:
Pentium Running at up to 100 MHz, the Pentium processor let computers more easily incorporate real-world data such as speech, sound, handwriting, and photographic images.
1995:
Pentium Pro Released in the fall of 1995, the Intel Pentium Pro was designed to fuel 32-bit server and workstation applications. Each chip was packaged together with a second speed-enhancing cache memory chip. The Pentium Pro incorporated 5.5 million transistors.
1996:
Pentium II High-performance desktop and servers came with the 7.5 million-transistor Intel Pentium II, incorporating MMX technology—designed specifically to process video, audio, and graphics data efficiently. It was introduced in a single edge contact (SEC) cartridge that also had a high-speed cache memory chip.
1998:
Pentium II Xeon The Intel Pentium II Xeon was designed for workstations and servers; systems based on it could be configured to scale to four or eight processors and beyond. This took multitasking even further.
1999:
Pentium III Running as fast at 500 MHz, the PIII featured 70 new instructions—including streaming SIMD extensions—to enhanced performance, particularly the Internet experience. The processor incorporates 9.5 million transistors, and was introduced using 0.25-micron technology.
2000 - Present
2000:
Low Voltage Mobile Intel Celeron Designed for the ultraportable mobile PC, the Celeron provided exceptionally low price points, and it delivered decent performance for those mobile systems.
Pentium 4 The P4 debuted with 42 million transistors and circuit lines of 0.18 microns. Intel's first microprocessor, the 4004, designed 30 years earlier, ran at 108 kilohertz (108,000 hertz), compared to the P4's initial speed of 1.5 gigahertz (1.5 billion hertz).
2002:
Pentium 4 3.06 GHz with Hyper-Threading Technology Intel's latest technology, Hyper-Threading lets one chip simulate two physical processors, letting it process data more efficiently.
2004:
Low Voltage Intel Pentium M The Pentium M, the 855 chipset, and the PRO/Wireless 2100 were the three main components of Intel's Centrino platform. Centrino was designed specifically for portable computing, with built-in wireless LAN capability and breakthrough mobile performance.
2005:
Pentium 4 Processor Extreme Edition Running at a whopping 3.8 GHz, the P4 Extreme Edition was the fastest clocked chip Intel ever officially released. Gaming enthusiasts worldwide rejoiced.
Pentium D 800 The birth of dual-core! Desktop PCs took advantage of this new technology, which packed two processor cores into a single CPU.
2006:
Core Duo Intel's current chip architecture, called Core, was initially released in 2006. Lauded for its speed and efficient design, the chip quickly won Intel a dramatic performance lead.
2007:
Core 2 Quad Q6600 Desktop PCs, particularly high-end gaming systems, featured this 2.4-GHz quad-core processor. Quad-cores are still considered the bleeding edge of technology today.
2008:
Atom Z540 Designed for UMPCs and other portable devices, the Atom is Intel's smallest chip. It nevertheless uses some big technologies, such as the 45nm Hi-k Metal Gate manufacturing technology.
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