History of the CPU

The Central Processing Unit (CPU)

History of the Central Processing Unit

CPU history starts in 1971, when a small unknown company, Intel, for the first time combined multiple transistors to form a central processing unit - a chip called Intel 4044. However, it was 8 years before the first Personal Computer was constructed.

PC's are designed around different CPU generations. Intel is not the only company manufacturing CPU's, but by far the leading one. The following table shows the different CPU generations. They are predominantly Intel chips, but in the 5th generation we see alternatives.

PC	CPU's	Year	Number of Transistors
1st Generation	8086 and 8088	1978-81	29,000
2nd Generation	80286	1984	134,000
3rd Generation	80386SX and 80386DX	1987-88	275,000
4th Generation	80486SX, 80486DX, 80486DX2 and 80486DX4	1990-92	1,200,000
5th Generation	Pentium Cyrix 6x86 AMD K5 IDT WinChip C6	1993-95 1996 1996 1997	3,100,000 -- -- 3,500,000
Improved 5th Generation	Pentium MMX IBM/Cyrix 6x86MX IDT WinChip2 3D	1997 1997 1998	4,500,000 6,000,000 6,000,000
6th Generation	Pentium Pro AMD K6 Pentium II AMD K6-2	1995 1997 1997 1998	5,500,000 8,800,000 7,500,000 9,300,000
Improved 6th Generation	Mobile Pentium II Mobile Celeron Pentium III AMD K6-3 Pentium III CuMine	1999	27,400,000 18,900,000 9,300,000 -- 28,000,000
7th Generation	AMD K7 Athlon	1999-2000	22,000,000

There are CPU's of many brand names (IBM, Texas, Cyrix, AMD), and often they make models which overlap two generations. This can make it difficult to keep track of CPU's. Here is an attempt to identify the various CPU's according to generation -

CPU List

Watch the photos of the different CPU's in the Picture Gallery.

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