Intel processors that made history

Processors are probably the most interesting piece of hardware in a computer. They have a rich and extensive history, dating back to 1971 with the first commercially available microprocessor, the Intel 4004. As we already know, since then, technology has improved by leaps and bounds.

We are going to show you the history of Intel processors, starting with the Intel 8086. It was the processor that IBM chose for the first PC and from there a great story began.

Index of contents

History and development of Intel processors

In 1968 Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce and Andy Grove invented Intel Corporation, to run the business "Integrated Electronics" or more familiarly known as INTEL. Its headquarters are in Santa Clara, California, and it is the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, with large facilities in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Intel has completely changed the world since it was founded in 1968; The company invented the microprocessor (the computer on a chip), which made the first calculators and personal computers (PCs) possible.

Static RAM (1969)

Starting in 1969, Intel announced its first product, 1101 Static RAM, the world's first metal oxide semiconductor (MOS). This signaled the end of the era of magnetic memory and the move to the first processor, the 4004.

Intel 4004 (1971)

In 1971 Intel's first microprocessor emerged, the 4004 microprocessor, which was used in the Busicom calculator. With this invention, a way was achieved to include artificial intelligence in inanimate objects.

Intel 8008 and 8080 (1972)

In the year 1972 the 8008 microprocessor appeared, which was twice the magnitude of its predecessor, the 4004. In 1974, the 8080 processor was the brain of the computer called Altair, at that time it sold around ten thousand units in a month.

After that, in 1978, the 8086/8088 microprocessor achieved significant sales volume in the computers division, which was produced by personal computer products manufactured by IBM, which used the 8088 processor.

Intel 8086 (1978)

While newcomers had developed their own technologies for their own processors, Intel continued to be more than just a viable source of new technology in this market, with AMD's continued growth on its heels.

The first four generations of the Intel processor took the "8" as the name of the series, so the technical types refer to this family of chips such as the 8088, 8086 and 80186. This goes as far as 80486, or simply 486.

The following chips are considered the dinosaurs of the computer world. Personal computers based on these processors are the type of PC that are currently in the garage or warehouse collecting dust. They don't do much good anymore, but geeks don't like throwing them away because they still work.

This chip was omitted for the original PC, but it was used in some later computers that didn't amount to much. It was a true 16-bit processor and communicated with its cards through 16-wire data connections.

The chip contained 29, 000 transistors and 20 bits of addresses that gave it the ability to work with up to 1MB of RAM. The interesting thing is that the designers of the time never suspected that someone would need more than 1 MB of RAM. The chip was available in 5, 6, 8, and 10 MHz versions.

Intel 8088 (1979)

CPUs have undergone many changes over the few years since Intel went on the market with the first processor. IBM chose Intel's 8088 processor for the brains of the first PC. This choice by IBM is what made Intel the perceived leader in the CPU market.

The 8088 is, for all practical purposes, identical to the 8086. The only difference is that it handles its address bits differently than the 8086 processor. But, like the 8086, it is capable of working with the 8087 math coprocessor chip.

Intel 186 (1980)

The 186 was a popular chip. Many versions have been developed in its history. Buyers could choose between CHMOS or HMOS, 8-bit or 16-bit versions, depending on what they needed.

A CHMOS chip could run at twice the clock speed and a quarter of the power of the HMOS chip. In 1990, Intel went on the market with the Enhanced 186 family. They all shared a common core design. They had a 1 micron core design and operated at about 25 MHz at 3 volts.

The 80186 contained a high level of integration, with the system controller, interrupt controller, DMA controller, and timing circuits directly on the CPU. Despite this, the 186 was never included on a PC.

NEC V20 and V30 (1981)

They are clones of the 8088 and 8086. They are supposed to be 30% faster than Intel's.

Intel 286 (1982)

Finally in 1982, the 286 processor, or better known as 80286, is a processor that could recognize and use the software used by previous processors.

It was a 16-bit processor and 134, 000 transistors, capable of addressing up to 16 MB of RAM. In addition to the increased physical memory support, this chip was able to work with virtual memory, thus allowing great expandability.

The 286 was the first "real" processor. He introduced the concept of protected mode. This was the ability to multitask, causing different programs to run separately but at the same time. This ability was not exploited by DOS, but future operating systems, such as Windows, could use this new feature.

However, the drawbacks to this capability were that while you could switch from real mode to protected mode (real mode was intended to make it compatible with 8088 processors), you couldn't go back to real mode without a hot reboot.

This chip was used by IBM in its Advanced Technology PC / AT and was used in many of the IBM compatible computers. It worked at 8, 10 and 12.5 MHz, but later editions of the chip worked at up to 20 MHz. While these chips are outdated today, they were quite revolutionary during this period.

Intel 386 (1985)

Intel development continued in 1985, with the 386 microprocessor, which had 275, 000 built-in transistors, which compared to 4004, had 100 times more.

The 386 meant a significant increase in Intel technology. The 386 was a 32-bit processor, which means that its data throughput was immediately double that of the 286.

The 80386DX processor, which contains 275, 000 transistors, came in 16, 20, 25 and 33 MHz versions. The 32-bit address bus allowed the chip to run on 4 GB of RAM and a staggering 64 TB virtual memory.

Additionally, the 386 was the first chip to use instructions, allowing the processor to start working on the next instruction before the previous instruction was completed.

While the chip could operate in both real and protected mode (like the 286), it could also operate in virtual real mode, allowing multiple real-mode sessions to run at once.

However, this required a multitasking operating system like Windows. In 1988 Intel released the 386SX, which was basically a lightweight version of the 386. It used the 16-bit data bus instead of the 32-bit, and it was slower but used less power, which allowed Intel to promote the chip. in desktop computers and even laptops.

I still remember when I rode my first PC with a 25 MHz 386 SX with my father in a garage. Fantastic evenings with just 10 years old!

In 1990, Intel released the 80386SL, which was basically an 855 transistor version of the 386SX processor, with ISA compatibility and power management circuits.

These chips were designed to be easy to use. All the chips in the family were pin-for-pin compatible and backward compatible with previous 186 chips, meaning that users did not have to purchase new software to use them.

Additionally, the 386 offered energy-friendly features, such as low-voltage requirements and System Management Mode (SMM), which could shutdown multiple components to save power.

Overall, this chip was a big step in chip development. It set the standard that many later chips would follow.

Intel 486 (1989)

Then, in 1989, the 486DX microprocessor was the first processor with more than 1 million transistors. The i486 was 32-bit and ran at clocks up to 100 MHz. This processor was marketed until the mid-1990s.

The first processor made it easy for applications that used to write commands to be a single click away, and had a complex mathematical function that reduced the workload on the processor.

It had the same memory capacity as the 386 (both were 32-bit) but offered twice the speed at 26.9 million instructions per second (MIPS) at 33 MHz.

However, there are some improvements beyond speed. The 486 was the first to have a built- in floating point unit (FPU) to replace the normally separate math coprocessor (not all 486s had this, however).

It also contained an 8KB built-in cache in the array. This increased speed by using the instructions to predict the following instructions and then cache them.

Then, when the processor needed that data, it took it out of the cache instead of using the overhead required to access the external memory. Additionally, the 486 came in both 5 and 3 volt versions, allowing flexibility for desktop and laptop computers.

The 486 chip was the first Intel processor designed to be upgradeable. Previous processors were not designed this way, so when the processor became obsolete, the entire motherboard had to be replaced.

In 1991 Intel released the 486SX and 486DX / 50. Both chips were basically the same, except that the 486SX version had the math coprocessor disabled.

The 486SX was, of course, slower than its DX cousin, but the resulting reduced power and cost lent itself to faster sales and movement in the laptop market. The 486DX / 50 was simply a 50 MHz version of the original 486. The DX could not support future OverDrives while the SX processor could.

In 1992, Intel released the next wave of 486's that used OverDrive technology. The first models were i486DX2 / 50 and i486DX2 / 66. The extra "2" in the names indicated that the normal processor clock speed was effectively doubled using OverDrive, so the 486DX2 / 50 was a 25 MHz chip doubled at 50 MHz. The slower base speed allowed the chip would work with existing motherboard designs, but allowed the chip to work internally at higher speeds, increasing performance.

At this time, AMD released its own 486 !! and much cheaper than Intel. I had one !! and what a wonderful processor. Although I would soon upgrade to a Pentium I:-p

Also in 1992, Intel released the 486SL. It was practically identical to the 486 vintage processors, but contained 1.4 million transistors.

The additional features were used by its internal power management circuitry, optimizing it for mobile use. From there, Intel released several 486 models, mixing SL's with SX's and DX's at a variety of clock speeds.

By 1994, they were completing their continued development of the 486 family with Overdrive DX4 processors. While these could be thought to be 4X watch quadruplers, they were actually 3X triplers, allowing a 33 MHz processor to operate internally at 100 MHz.

Pentium I (1993)

Launched in 1993, this processor had over 3 million transistors. At that time, the Intel 486 was leading the entire market. Also, people were used to the traditional 80 × 86 naming scheme.

Intel was busy working on its next generation of processors. But it shouldn't be called 80586. There were some legal issues surrounding the possibility of Intel using the 80586 numbers.

Therefore, Intel changed the name of the processor to Pentium, a name that could easily be registered. Thus, in 1993 they released the Pentium processor.

The original Pentium operated at 60 MHz and 100 MIPS. Also called "P5" or "P54, " the chip contained 3.21 million transistors and worked on the 32-bit address bus (same as 486). It also had an external 64-bit data bus that could run at about twice the speed of the 486.

The Pentium family included the clock speeds of 60, 66, 75, 90, 100, 120, 133, 150, 166 and 200 MHz. The original versions of 60 and 66 MHz operated in the socket 4 configuration, while all versions remaining operated on socket 7.

Some of the chips (75 MHz - 133 MHz) could also operate on socket 5. Pentium was compatible with all older operating systems including DOS, Windows 3.1, Unix and OS / 2.

At home we had a hard time migrating to Windows 95 and its dreaded BSOD…

Its superscalar microarchitecture design allowed executing two instructions per clock cycle. The two separate 8K caches (code cache and data cache) and the segmented floating point unit (in pipeline) increased its performance beyond x86 chips.

It had the SL power management features of the i486SL, but the capacity was greatly improved. It had 273 pins that connected it to the motherboard. Internally, however, its two chained 32-bit chips divided the work.

The first Pentium chips ran at 5 volts, and therefore ran fairly hot. Starting with the 100 MHz version, the requirement was reduced to 3.3 volts. Starting with the 75 MHz version, the chip also supported symmetric multiprocessing, which means that two Pentiums could be used side by side on the same system.

The Pentium stayed long, and there were so many different Pentiums that it became difficult to tell them apart.

Pentium Pro (1995-1999)

If the previous Pentium was outdated, this processor evolved into something more acceptable. The Pentium Pro (also called "P6" or "PPro") was a RISC chip with a 486 hardware emulator, operating at 200 MHz or less. This chip used various techniques to produce more performance than its predecessors.

Increasing speed was accomplished by dividing processing into more stages, and more work was done within each clock cycle.

In each clock cycle, three instructions could be decoded, compared to just two for the Pentium. Also, decoding and executing instructions was decoupled, which meant that instructions could still be executed if a pipeline was stopped (for example, when an instruction was waiting for data from memory; Pentium would stop all processing at this point).

The instructions were sometimes executed out of order, that is, not necessarily as written in the program, but rather when the information was available, although they did not stay out of sequence much, just long enough to make things work better.

It had two 8K L1 caches (one for data and one for instructions) and up to 1MB of L2 cache built into the same package. The built-in L2 cache boosted performance itself because the chip did not have to make use of an L2 cache (level 2 cache) on the motherboard itself.

It was a great processor for servers, since it could be in multiprocessor systems with 4 processors. Another good thing about the Pentium Pro is that with the use of a Pentium 2 overdrive processor, you had all the advantages of a normal Pentium II, but the L2 cache was at full speed, and you got the multiprocessor support of the original Pentium Pro.

Pentium MMX (1997)

Intel released many different models of the Pentium processor. One of the most improved models was the Pentium MMX, released in 1997.

It was an initiative by Intel to upgrade the original Pentium and better serve multimedia and performance needs. One of the key enhancements, and from where it gets its name, is the MMX instruction set.

MMX instructions were an extension of the normal instruction set. The 57 simplified additional instructions helped the processor perform certain key tasks more efficiently, allowing it to perform some tasks with an instruction that would have required more regular instructions.

The Pentium MMX performed up to 10-20% faster with standard software, and even better with software optimized for MMX instructions. Many multimedia and gaming applications that took better advantage of MMX performance had higher frame rates.

MMX was not the only improvement on the Pentium MMX. Dual Pentium 8K caches doubled to 16KB each. This Pentium model reached 233 MHz.

Pentium II (1997)

Intel made some major changes with the release of Pentium II. I had the Pentium MMX and Pentium Pro's on the market in a strong way, and I wanted to bring the best of both on a single chip.

As a result, Pentium II is the combination of Pentium MMX and Pentium Pro. But as in real life, a satisfactory result is not necessarily obtained.

The Pentium II was optimized for 32-bit applications. It also contained the MMX instruction set, which was almost standard at the time. The chip used Pentium Pro's dynamic execution technology, which allowed the processor to predict input instructions, speeding up the workflow.

Pentium II had 32 KB of L1 cache (16 KB each for data and instructions) and had a 512 KB L2 cache in the package. The L2 cache worked at processor speed, not at full speed. However, the fact that the L2 cache was not found on the motherboard, but on the chip itself, increased performance.

The original Pentium II was a code called "Klamath". It ran at a poor speed of 66 MHz and ranged from 233 MHz to 300 MHz. In 1998, Intel did a slight job of retrofitting the processor and released "Deschutes." They used 0.25 micron design technology for this, and enabled a 100 MHz system bus.

Celeron (1998)

When Intel released the upgraded P2 (Deschutes), they decided to tackle the entry-level market with a smaller version of the Pentium II, the Celeron.

To cut costs, Intel removed the L2 cache from the Pentium II. It also removed support for dual processors, a feature the Pentium II had.

This caused performance to be noticeably reduced. Removing the L2 cache from a chip seriously hampers its performance. Furthermore, the chip was limited to the 66 MHz system bus. As a result, competing chips at the same clock speeds outperformed the Celeron. It failed with the next edition of the Celeron, the Celeron 300A. The 300A came with 128 KB of built-in L2 cache, which means it ran at full processor speed, not half speed like the Pentium II.

This was excellent for Intel users, because Celerons with high-speed cache performed much better than Pentium IIs with 512 KB of cache running at half speed.

With this fact, and the fact that Intel unleashed the Celeron's bus speed, the 300A became famous in overclocking enthusiast circles.

Pentium III (1999)

Intel released the Pentium III “Katmai” processor in February 1999, which operated at 450 MHz on a 100 MHz bus. Katmai introduced the SSE instruction set, which basically consisted of an MMX extension that again improved the performance of the 3D applications designed to use the new capacity.

Also called MMX2, the SSE contained 70 new instructions, with four simultaneous instructions that could be performed simultaneously.

This original Pentium III ran on a slightly improved P6 core, making the chip well-suited for multimedia applications. However, the chip was controversial when Intel decided to include the integrated "processor serial number" (PSN) in Katmai.

The PSN was designed to be read over a network, including on the internet. The idea, as Intel saw it, was to increase the level of security in online transactions. End users viewed it differently. They saw it as an invasion of privacy. After getting hit in the eye from a public relations perspective and getting some pressure from its customers, Intel finally allowed the tag to be disabled in the BIOS.

In April 2000, Intel released its Pentium III Coppermine. While Katmai had 512 KB of L2 cache, Coppermine had half of that at just 256 KB. But the cache was located directly on the CPU core rather than on the captured card, as typified by earlier slot 1 processors. This caused the smaller cache to become a real issue as performance benefited.

Celeron II (2000)

Just as the Pentium III was a Pentium II with ESS and some added features, the Celeron II is simply a Celeron with an ESS, SSE2, and some added features.

The chip was available from 533 MHz to 1.1 GHz. This chip was basically an upgrade from the original Celeron, and was released in response to AMD's competition in the low-cost market with the Duron.

Due to some inefficiencies in the L2 cache and still using the 66 MHz bus, this chip would not hold up too well against the Duron despite being based on the Coppermine core.

Pentium IV (2000)

Intel really beat AMD by launching the Pentium IV Willamette in November 2000. Pentium IV was exactly what Intel needed to retake the top position against AMD.

Pentium IV was a truly new CPU architecture and served as the beginning of the new technologies that we will see in the coming years.

The new NetBurst architecture was designed with future speed increases in mind, which meant the P4 would not fade quickly like the Pentium III near the 1 GHz mark.

According to Intel, NetBurst consisted of four new technologies: Hyper Pipelined Technology, Rapid Execution Engine, Execution Trace Cache, and a 400 MHz system bus.

The first Pentium 4s used the socket 423 interface. One of the reasons for the new interface is the addition of heat sink retention mechanisms to each side of the socket.

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This is a move to help owners avoid the dreaded mistake of crushing the CPU core by squeezing the heatsink too hard.

Socket 423 had a short life, and Pentium IV quickly moved to socket 478 with the 1.9 GHz launch. In addition, P4 was associated at launch exclusively with Rambus RDRAM.

In early 2002, Intel announced a new edition of the Pentium IV based on the Northwood core. The big news with this is that Intel was leaving the larger 0.18 micron Willamette core in favor of this new 0.13 micron Northwood.

This reduced the core and thus allowed Intel not only to make Pentium IV cheaper, but also to make more of these processors.

Northwood was first released in the 2 GHz and 2.2 GHz versions, but the new design gives P4 room to move up to 3 GHz fairly easily.

Pentium M (2003)

The Pentium M was created for mobile applications, mainly laptops (or notebooks), that's why the "M" in the name of the processor. It used socket 479, with the most common applications for that socket being used in the Pentium M and Celeron M mobile processors.

Interestingly, the Pentium M was not designed as a lower-powered version of the Pentium IV. Instead, it is a heavily modified Pentium III, which itself was based on Pentium II.

The Pentium M focused on energy efficiency to significantly improve the battery life of a laptop. With this in mind, the Pentium M operates with much lower average power consumption, as well as much lower heat output.

Pentium 4 Prescott, Celeron D and Pentium D (2005)

The Pentium 4 Prescott was introduced in 2004 with mixed feelings. This was the first core to use the 90nm semiconductor manufacturing process. Many were not satisfied with it because the Prescott was essentially a restructuring of the Pentium 4 microarchitecture. While that would be a good thing, there were not too many positives.

Some programs were enhanced by the duplicate cache as well as by the SSE3 instruction set. Unfortunately, there were other programs that suffered due to the longer duration of instruction.

It's also worth noting that the Pentium 4 Prescott was able to achieve some pretty high clock speeds, but not as high as Intel expected. A version of the Prescott was able to obtain speeds of 3.8 GHz. Eventually Intel released a version of Prescott that supports Intel's 64-bit architecture, Intel 64. To begin with, these products were only sold as the F series to original equipment manufacturers, but Intel eventually renamed it to the 5 × series. 1, which was sold to consumers.

Intel introduced another version of the Prentium 4 Prescott, which was the Celeron D. One big difference with them is that they showed twice the L1 and L2 cache than the previous Willamette and Northwood desktop.

The Celeron D overall was a significant performance improvement compared to many of the previous NetBurst-based Celerons. While there were significant improvements to overall performance, it did have one big problem: excessive heat.

Another of the processors manufactured by Intel was the Pentium D. This processor can be seen as the dual-core variant of the Pentium 4 Prescott. Obviously, all the benefits of an extra core were realized, but the other notable improvement with the Pentium D was that it could run multithreaded applications. The Pentium D-series was retired in 2008 as it had many pitfalls, including high power consumption.

Intel Core 2 (2006)

Truth be told, there's nothing more confusing than the Intel naming convention here: Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 and the recent 10-core Intel Core i9.

Here you can see the Intel Core i3 as Intel's lowest level processor line. With the Core i3, you'll get two cores (now four), hyperthreading technology (now without it), a smaller cache, and more energy efficiency. This makes it cost a lot less than a Core i5, but in turn, it's also worse than a Core i5.

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The Core i5 is a little more confusing. In mobile apps, the Core i5 has four cores but does not have hyperthreading. This processor will deliver enhanced integrated graphics and Turbo Boost, a way to temporarily speed up processor performance when a little more heavy work is needed.

All Core i7 processors incorporate the hyperthreading technology that is missing from the Core i5. But a Core i7 can have anywhere from four cores to 8 cores on an enthusiastic platform PC.

Also, since the Core i7 is the highest-level processor from Intel in this series, you can count on better integrated graphics, a more efficient and faster Turbo Boost and a larger cache. That said, the Core i7 is the most expensive processor variant.

Final words about Intel processors that made history

Until the start of the 21st century, Intel microprocessors have been found in more than 80 percent of PCs worldwide. The company's product line also includes chipsets and motherboards; flash memory used in wireless communications and other applications; hubs, switches, routers and other products for Ethernet networks; among other products.

We recommend reading the best processors on the market

Intel has remained competitive through a combination of smart marketing, well-supported research and development, superior manufacturing insights, a vital corporate culture, legal competence, and an ongoing alliance with software giant Microsoft Corporation.