Related topics: intel · personal computer

Intel's Light Peak Will Replace Copper Wires

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco Wednesday, the company announced a new optical cable that will be able to transfer data, between electrical devices, starting at speeds of 10 gigabits per second.

Computing experts unveil superefficient 'inexact' chip

Researchers have unveiled an "inexact" computer chip that challenges the industry's dogmatic 50-year pursuit of accuracy. The design improves power and resource efficiency by allowing for occasional errors. Prototypes unveiled ...

AMD narrows loss, but spinoff weighs on chip maker

(AP) -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. narrowed its third-quarter loss slightly, as the chip maker's remaining stake in factories it spun off last year dragged down the results.

Ferroelectrics could pave way for ultra-low power computing

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that it is possible to reduce the minimum voltage necessary to store charge in a capacitor, an achievement that could reduce the power draw and heat generation ...

How to choose a surge protector

Question: The consensus is that it's proper to insert surge protectors between the power source and the computer. The question is, how big? How many joules? Is it true that they "wear out" in a year or so?

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Microprocessor

A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single integrated circuit (IC). The first microprocessors emerged in the early 1970s and were used for electronic calculators, using binary-coded decimal (BCD) arithmetic on 4-bit words. Other embedded uses of 4- and 8-bit microprocessors, such as terminals, printers, various kinds of automation etc, followed rather quickly. Affordable 8-bit microprocessors with 16-bit addressing also led to the first general purpose microcomputers in the mid-1970s.

Computer processors were for a long period constructed out of small and medium-scale ICs containing the equivalent of a few to a few hundred transistors. The integration of the whole CPU onto a single VLSI chip therefore greatly reduced the cost of processing capacity. From their humble beginnings, continued increases in microprocessor capacity have rendered other forms of computers almost completely obsolete (see history of computing hardware), with one or more microprocessor as processing element in everything from the smallest embedded systems and handheld devices to the largest mainframes and supercomputers.

Since the early 1970s, the increase in capacity of microprocessors has been known to generally follow Moore's Law, which suggests that the complexity of an integrated circuit, with respect to minimum component cost, doubles every two years. In the late 1990s, and in the high-performance microprocessor segment, heat generation (TDP), due to switching losses, static current leakage, and other factors, emerged as a leading developmental constraint.

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