| YEAR
| CHIP
| INNOVATION
| APPLICATIONS
| PROBLEMS
|
| 1971
| Intel 4004
| First "computer-on-a-chip"
| Arithmetic , i.e. Busicom calculator
| Limited resources
|
| 1972
| Intel 8008
| 8-bit bus width; first to implement interrupts
| Dumb terminals, calculators, bottling machines
| Interrupts worked poorly
|
| 1972
| Texas Instruments
TMS 1000
| On-chip memory
| Low-cost embedded applications
| Programmers couldn't add external memory
|
| 1974
| Intel 8080
| 10x performance of the 8008; separate address and data buses
| Altair computer (first PC); traffic light controller
| Difficult to program
|
| 1978
| Intel 8086
| 16-bit bus width
| Desktop and portable computing
| Convoluted addressing scheme
|
| 1979
| Motorola 68000
| 16-/32-bit chip powerful enough to handle advanced graphics
| Apple Lisa ('83), Unix workstations, home videogame machines
| Integer unit and ex-ternal data bus only 16 bits wide
|
| 1979
| Intel 8088
| 16-bit internal architecture with 8-bit external bus
| IBM PCs and clones
| Same convoluted addressing scheme as the 8086
|
| 1982
| Intel 80286
| Added memory protection; 16 MB of addressable memory; 1GB of virtual memory
| Standard PC CPU
| Couldn't do page faults, lacked virtual memory
|
| 1985
| Intel 386 DX
| 64 terabytes of virtual memory; 32-bit bus; 4-GB addressable memory
| Desktop PCs
| Didn't yet have an on-chip FPU or on-chip cache
|
| 1986
| MIPS Computer Systems
R2000
| First motherboard-level RISC chip for workstations
| Unix workstations; later, midrange computers
| Difficult to program; incompatible with PC software
|
| 1987
| Sun Microsystems
SPARC
| An open RISC architecture
| Laptops to workstations to
supercomputers
| Required multiple chips due to pair of CMOS gate arrays and external FPUs
|
| 1989
| Intel i486
| First x86 with on-chip cache, FPU, and pipelined instructions
| Desktop PCs, CAD
| Lacked advanced techniques of some RISC chips
|
| 1989
| Intel i960CA
| First superscalar chip
| Primarily embedded applications
| Fairly expensive
|
| 1992
| Digital Equipment Corp.
Alpha 21064
| 200-MHz clock
| Workstations and servers
| Ran hot; expensive
|
| 1993
| IBM and Motorola
PowerPC 601
| First out-of-order execution microprocessor
| Apple Macintoshes, desktop PCs, servers
| Programs not usually written for out-of-order execution
|
| 1993
| Intel Pentium
| Dynamic branch prediction; 64-bit external data bus and 32-bit address bus
| Desktop PCs and network servers
| Ran very hot
|
| 1995
| Digital Equipment Corp.
Alpha 21164
| First to execute four instructions per cycle and the first with three on-chip caches
| High-end desktop PCs, workstations, and servers
| Runs hot; expensive
|
| 1995
| Intel Pentium Pro
| Has CPU chip and cache chip in same package
| High-end desktop computers, graphics workstations, servers
| Expensive
|
Progress and Pitfalls
