Intel Pentium Processors – A Bird's Eye View.
The year was 1971. Intel, which considers itself 'the world leader in silicon innovation', introduced the world's first microprocessor. When Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, USA, was founded in 1968, then known as Integrated Electronics Corporation, by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, it was with a limited goal - to build semiconductor memory products and today it manufactures a myriad of products including Intel Pentium Processors, Chipsets, Motherboards, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors, Desktops, Laptops, Servers/Workstations, Software and is also into Networking & Communications. With 94,100 employees on its rolls, Intel develops technologies and products but what perhaps is unique about is its 'initiatives to continually advance how people work and live.'
Due to constraints of space, in this article we limit ourselves to a general study about Intel Pentium Processors. Consequently, to help understand better, this article does not dwell much on the details. However, a note on what microprocessors are and a reference to the 'Pentium flaw' without which an article on Intel Pentium Processors cannot not be considered as complete.
A processor is nothing but an electronic component which functions as the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer. It is the CPU that performs all the arithmetical and logical calculations. In other words it can be said that by virtue of its importance it deserves to be called the brain of the computer where all instructions and data are processed.
It was in the year 1993 that Intel introduced its P5 processor under the brand name 'Intel Pentium,' since numbers (like 386 or 486) were barred from being used as part of product names. Dr. Thomas Nicely, Professor of Mathematics at Lynchburg College, in October 1994 discovered a flaw which resulted in incorrect floating-point division operations. On October 30, Dr. Thomas posted a message on the Internet, since there was no response from Intel on the issue. As the 'Pentium flaw' got magnified, Intel had to spend $500 million to replace every chip. However, the very same 'Pentium flaw' incident catapulted Intel to greater heights on the global map is a different matter. The list of Intel Pentium Processors families is given below: Intel Pentium D Processor
Intel Pentium M Processor
Intel Pentium III Processor
Intel Pentium III Xeon™ Processor
Intel Pentium II Xeon™ Processor
Intel Pentium II Processor
Intel Pentium Pro Processor
Intel Pentium Processor
Intel Pentium 4 Processor Each of the above processor families has more than one model with different features. To differentiate one model from the other within a family, the processor numbers help. This can be explained with an example. For instance, Intel Pentium D Processor 800 has 1024 KB L2 Cache, clocks a speed of 2.8 - 3.2 GHz, and its Front Side Bus speed is 800 MHz, and contains 230 million transistors. Where as Intel Pentium D Processor 900 has 2048 KB L2 Cache, clocks a speed of 2.8 - 3.4 GHz and its Front Side Bus runs at 800 MHz but has 376 million transistors. The site also cautions: 'Intel processor numbers are not a measure of performance. Processor numbers differentiate features within each processor family, not across different processor families.'
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