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The CPU (central processing unit)
was invented in the early 1980’s by the Intel company. The processor
was originally invented to help speed up computer math calculations.
This would help computers advance to become what we know them
to be today, which is the most complex, and yet most simple
thing ever built by man.
Today, most CPU's and other silicon
products and manufactured in Taiwan. They are made using extremely
state of the art equipment. They are made in places called “clean
rooms” which are static, lint, and dust free. First, a wafer
of silicon is brought down an assembly line. Next, small squares
are stamped out about the size of an average finger nail. Next,
they would embed (using extremely fine equipment) millions of
small etchings onto the wafer. These small etchings are called
“transistors” which are used to carry data throughout the processor.
The “transistor” on a CPU is
a small etching on a piece of silicon. They are mainly used
to carry the electrical impulses, or calculations the processor
needs to perform. The average size of a transistor made by Intel
is currently built using a .25 micron (1 micron is about 1/100th
the size of a piece of paper) fabrication process. By late June
1999 Intel should start to build CPU's using the newer .18 micron
fabrication process. This will enable us to build faster more
powerful CPU's without problems
On the average CPU about 8.2
million transistors would populate a piece of silicon about
the size of a small finger nail. According to Moore's law of
computers, the average number of transistors doubles every 18-24
months. On some of Intel's newer Pentium III CPU's they store
about 9.5 million transistors on a small piece of silicon. The
Pentium pro (the predecessor to the Pentium II) was a monster
of a processor. This chip had nearly 15.5 million transistors
(on 2 wafers), built using the older .35 micron fabrication
process. This was not a good idea because, the larger the fabrication
process uses much more power, which creates more heat which
in turn can damage a CPU through electromigration.
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