Processors Case

Intel CPUs

In the early 1960's CPUs were custom designed as part of a larger computer. Computers where monstrous devices taking up entire rooms that required air-conditioning. In the 1970's engineers figured out how to make smaller CPUs which transformed computers to manageable desktops and laptops. Today you can hold a computer in the palm of hand.

The CPU stands for Central Processing Unit. The CPU is the brains of the computer. It gets data from the memory and carries out the instructions. The first CPU was contracted in 1971. Ted Hoff was the first person to recognize the new silicon technology could make a single chip CPU possible. It was designed as a tiny CPU that could be programmed to perform almost any calculation. The expensive and time-consuming work to design a wired chip was replaced by the tiny flexible Intel 4004 microprocessor with instructions stored in a separate ROM chip. It was a 4-bit CPU, this chip revolutionized computers by placing all the parts that make a computer think, like the memory, input and output and CPU on one small chip. This invention changed the computer world. Intel Corporation was the company that started the revolution. The Intel 4004 was the first universal microprocessor.

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The first CPU chip handled data in four bits. Today's CPUs are 32-bit to 64-bit and are still based on similar designs. Intel altered the course of computers when they introduced multi-core technology. This technology enables higher levels of performance. Hyper-threading also increases efficiency by executing two software threads on a single core this gets more done with less power. The Core i5 has hyper-threading to allow each core on the processor to work on two tasks. The core i5 is 64-bit. Today's CPU allow for the user to edit photos, download music, and play games.