by Lon Elliott

Created on: February 22, 2009

How increses in CPU speeds have become possible

Warp speed Mr. Sulu. Since the dawn of time man has fought to make things faster and more efficient. From the microwave oven for cooking, to the automobile for travel and on into the computer for faster information processing. How is it possible to make these leaps forward in computer processing speeds though? What great technology is used?

At its most simple terms a computer processor is just a bunch of transistors stacked on a silicone wafer. These transistors perform the mathematic functions of the processor allowing it to process information. Gordan E. Moore, a co-founder of Intel, published a paper in 1965 stating what is now known as Moore's law. Essentially the law states that the number of transistors on a processor could be doubled roughly every two years. The more transistors on the processor, the faster the processor and more information it can process. The first Intel processor, the Intel 4004 built in 1971, contained 2300 transistors on the chip itself. This was performed literally by hand. It took engineers years to build this chip. Moving onto the first Pentium chip built in 1993. The Pentium chip contained 3.1 million transistors. The latest processor from Intel, the Core i7, contains 731 million transistors.

The Pentium processor was a game changer for the computer industry when it was introduced. This chip, allowed home computing on a large scale. With this processor engineers were now able to use their own processors to aid in their search for the faster chip. After this point, no longer did engineers need to toil by hand and try to figure out the wiring and electronics involved with increasing speed. Now a computer and complex software is used to design these new chips. Intel however, seeing the end of Moore's law coming with the Pentium 4 due to space, size, and heat problems decided to go in a different direction to keep the law alive.

Parallel computing. Instead of trying to put more and more transistors on one chip, the decision was made to put more and more processors on one platform. Its like putting 2 or 4 engines in one car. You can use one engine at highway speeds, but use all four engines for towing. The computers now operate in this manner. When doing simple tasks one core is being used. When the computer needs to do serious heavy lifting, more processors are called upon. Its truly a revolution in computing.

The simplest way to think about it is, technology is used to create technology. At this point, computer technology is increasing at an exponential rate. Things are getting faster and smaller. Its only a matter of time before we hear the words, "Warp Speed Mr. Sulu."

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