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The outside of the typical desktop PC platform has not changed a great deal since
the original design was introduced by IBM* in 1981. The basic ergonomics of a large
box with monitor on top and keyboard in front has remained remarkably constant over
the past 16 years. Inside the PC platform, however, the electronics has evolved rapidly
and this is about to create a dramatic change in the PC usage model. The PC is maturing
from a universally adaptable, "one-size-fits-all" system into a wide range of targeted
appliances designed to solve specific user applications. The fuel behind this expanded
and changing role is Intel's relentless performance increases of the microprocessor.
I first observed the "doubling of transistor density on a manufactured die every year"
in 1965, just four years after the first planar integrated circuit was discovered. The
press called this "Moore's Law" and the name has stuck. To be honest, I did not expect
this law to still be true some 30 years later, but I am now confident that it will be
true for another 20 years. By the year 2012, Intel should have the ability to integrate
1 billion transistors onto a production die that will be operating at 10GHz. This could
result in a performance of 100,000 MIPS, the same increase over the currently cutting edge
Pentium® II processor as the Pentium II processor was to the 386! We see no fundamental
barriers in our path to Micro 2012, and it's not until the year 2017 that we see the
physical limitations of wafer fabrication technology being reached.
You can observe the beginnings of a role-change in the PC platform today. Some
applications will continue to drive for maximum available processor performance
but others will use the processor capabilities in different ways. Mobile systems,
for example, are able to slow the processor down to conserve battery life yet still
deliver incredible performance to the user. A PC platform targeted at home entertainment
could use the processor performance to decompress an MPEG-2 video stream in software. This reduces the cost of the platform by removing special decompression hardware,
making the system more affordable to a broader market. I expect to see rapid growth
in all PC platform application areas in the next few years.
The Focus section in this issue of Platform Solutions delves deeper into the
challenges of Micro 2012 and discusses the R&D efforts that Intel is employing to
remove the barriers to delivering this improved capability to the PC platform.
This material was originally presented at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), and a
webcast is available for your listening pleasure at the IDF site. The last 16
years of the PC platform have been filled with exciting innovations. The next 20
years promises to be even more exciting for the user experience, and it's all made
possible by Intel's silicon technology leadership.
Dr. Gordon E. Moore is Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation. Gordon co-founded
Intel in 1968 and was CEO from 1979 to 1987. He is the originator of the now
legendary Moore's Law, named after him in 1965, for which Intel silicon technology
has tracked for over 30 years.
To find out more about how Moore's Law is changing the PC platform, visit the
Focus section in this month's Platform Solutions newsletter.
For more information on the Intel Developer Forum, read the Top Story in this
month's Platform Solutions on "PC Evolution Accelerates at the Fall Intel
Developer Forum."
To see and hear a webcast replay of Gordon Moore's IDF keynote presentation,
visit the IDF web site.
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