February 6, 2008

The two billion transistor chip

The computer chip giant Intel has launched what they call Tukwila a quad core chip which is the first to have more than two billion transistors contained within its tiny structure.

However before anyone gets too exited do not expect this to appear inside a PC as it has been designed for the high end server market, it will work at a speed of 2 GHz which is the same a regular computer chip as fitted inside a PC.

When it comes to computer chips, there is a known law; it is called Moore’s Law, after the founder of Intel, Gordon Moore. This law states that the amount of transistors fitted into a chip at a fixed cost will double every two years, so in years time there will be a four billion transistor chip.

Source [BBC News]